Lovelette Brooks, News editor

Eldon Calvert -Contributed

Wood Grove is one of the satellite districts that comprise the wider Lowe River community near Wait-A-Bit in Trelawny. Here, the pattern of development is linear. Handsome houses overlook mist-filled valleys sprouting yams and other subsistence crops.

Wood Grove is also the place where 25-year-old leader of St. James' 'Stone Crusher' gang, Eldon Calvert, was captured on January 21, 2008. He was placed on the police most-wanted list two years ago in connection with a range of offences including murder, shooting with intent, illegal possession of firearm and robbery. He is also known to have had close run-ins and blazing gun battles with the police.

Operation Kingfish arrested Calvert in a pre-dawn operation along with two other men and a woman in the quiet Wood Grove district. Prior to his capture, he eluded police cordons on a number of occasions, including in Tivoli Gardens on Sunday, January 13. There was a million-dollar reward being offered for his capture.

Despite the high visibility of the Tivoli Gardens operation, Calvert, whose photograph appeared in the media, was able to sneak into Wood Grove, unnoticed by his neighbours.

It is late Saturday evening when The Sunday Gleaner drives into the community. The temperature seems to have dipped several degrees below average. There are not many friendly faces around, and one gets the feeling that the community is tense and fearful. Eyeing the news team, young men at a corner shop end their conversation quickly and move on.

everybody suspicious

We drive into the heart of Wood Grove and the homes here are quite substantial. There are no obvious signs of poverty. We want to identify the house from which Culvert was captured, but there's no one to ask. We sit and wait with our adventurous driver in the chill of the evening.

A woman approaches. "Hello, please, can I help you folks?" she says pleasantly. We tell her our mission. "The house you looking for is 'round the corner up on the hill, you passed it. There are two big, white houses up there, the first one with the steps going up is the one which the police come here and create excitement about," she discloses.

"I tell you, that morning, my blood pressure shoot up, I had was to go to the doctor. Anyway, I can't talk much to you out here, everybody suspicious. Come with me down to mi house," she beckons, pointing towards winding concrete steps leading to a house below road level. But we had to see the "big, white house" before engaging her in further conversation.

It is a typical house on a hill, affording a good view of the immediate environs and beyond. There are articles of clothing on a line being buffeted by the stiff wind. The house is closed though, and no one answers our call. "Nobody is there, the man who live up there is out at the tyre shop at the cross road," informs a little boy sporting an oversized blue coat.

"The house up there has been locked up for years. Is a family house, you know. One of the daughters, a teacher, use to live there for years, but she went to foreign and nobody was there. Recently, now, two brothers move in, one own a business in the community," the resident confides.

She whispers: "I don't know what really happen, but this man who the police wanted must have been a friend, and he wasn't there (at the house) with them (the brothers) for long, you know. Nobody know nuttin about him. Some people say them see him; some say they don't see him. I think I glimpse him, but I couldn't tell who him be. You know, people come and people go, and sometimes you don't pay much attention to who you see.

commotion

"Mi dear lady, to think that a badman terrorist like we see on TV was here living in Wood Grove is hard to believe. Is after the capture we hear all the things that him used to do you know ... And him living so close to us, him could do anything to us, and some people in here have little money, you know.

"The commotion that morning was like nothing we ever experience. Is weeks after, but people 'round here 'fraid, everybody goes in early these days, because you cannot trust nobody."

Our news team is eager to speak with some of the young men in the community, so we stop at a bar and grocery shop where a rather dull game of dominoes is in progress. We join the group. The players are concentrating on the game, but a middle-aged onlooker gives us his views on Calvert's capture.

"Is a nice place him choose to hide out; Wood Grove nice, you see it. Now, I feel is give the man dem give him away ... tip off the police. How dem know fi pounce so early? Anyway, is a good ting, because no badman nuh de roun here, them couldn't stay. I man didn't even see him good, because the police dem cover him face with a sheet," he relates.

lovellette.brooks@gleanerjm.com