#4014: Haitian Manager Killed in Queens Massacre (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Rosann Clements <rosann@onemain.com>

From: Rosann Clements <rosann@onemain.com>
Haitian Manager Killed in Queens Massacre
By Roosevelt Joseph
Haitian Times Staff
QUEENS - Jean Dumel Auguste had hoped someday to open his own nightclub, buy
a house with a swimming pool in the back, marry his sweetheart and have a
big family. But those lofty dreams were violently shattered last week when
Auguste and four employees of a Wendy's restaurant were killed
execution-style by two cold-blooded street thugs during a robbery.
The police have arrested two Queens men, John Taylor, 36, and Craig
Godineaux, 30, and charged them with the killings. Angry and grief-stricken
families demanded the death penalty for the two career criminals accused in
the gangster-style killing that shocked the city and claimed five innocent
lives.
"I want to watch him die," said Jean Elvius Auguste, the deceased's father.
I want him to get the death penalty. If they gave him the death penalty, at
least he will not be able to take any more lives." Jean Elvius Auguste
continued: "I lost my son. Nobody's going to give him back to me." Jean
Esterne Auguste, Dumel's older brother said that he would never forget what
his brother has done for him. He said that Dumel always gave him courage to
face the world. "I will never forget him. He was a good brother," said
Esterne Auguste, who worked as a computer operator at UPS. "I will missed
him as long as I live.
I lost someone that no one else could replace, no one." Auguste, who was
nicknamed Didi, called his brother Elson last Tuesday to tell him that he
had fallen in love. "He told me Linda was the women of his dream," said his
26-year-old brother Jean Elson Auguste. "He would get you laughing," Elson
said. "He was the one who kept everything together. He was like the
godfather of the family." Dumel's nightmare began just past closing time
last Wednesday night at the Wendy's restaurant on Main Street in Flushing,
Queens.
Two men, one short, one tall, knocked at the locked front door, and asked
for the manager by name, the police said. The 27-year-old manager, Jean
Dumel Auguste, led Taylor down to the store basement where he kept a small
office near the employee changing rooms. Not long after, Dumel used the
intercom system to summon his six employees down into the basement for a
meeting. Once there, Taylor ordered Auguste to tie the hands of his workers
behind their back, and covered their face and mouth with strips of duct
tape.
The seven hostages were then bound and gagged and had plastic bags placed
over their heads. As the terrified workers lay on the ground of the freezer
room, the two gunmen stood over them pumping bullets into their heads one by
one. When the nightmare ended, five people, including manager Jean Auguste,
laid dead on the floor. Two survivors were rushed to New York Hospital
Medical Center in Queens. One of the two survivors, JaQuione Johnson, 18,
who lives with an aunt in Jamaica, Queens, underwent six hours of surgery
Friday for his head wounds. The next day the critically wounded Johnson
opened his eyes as his heart-broken mother maintained her patient vigil by
his bedside.
The other survivor, Patrick Castro, 23, was treated for a small face wound
and released. The others four who died in the restaurant slaughter house
were Ali Ibadat, 40; Jeremy Mile, 19; Ramon Nazario, 44 and Anita Smith, 23.
Dumel came from Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, in 1990 for the same reason that
had attracted the rest of his family, his brother-in-law St. Anel
Saint-Vilus, said: "looking for a better life." Last week, his body was
taken to his hometown in Haiti where he was buried. When he came to the
United States, Dumel found work at Wendy's, a fast-food company that has
4,900 restaurants and more than 200, 000 employees throughout the country.
For a while, he worked as a crew manager at a Wendy's in Whitestone, Queen.
Former employees recalled him as someone who would drive them home after a
late shift. In January, Dumel was promoted to assistant manager and assigned
to the Wendy's restaurant in Flushing. Relatives said Mr. Auguste, who
graduated from Sara J. Hale High School in Brooklyn, was an ambitious man .
Linda Pardo, who got engaged to Dumel in April, said they were supposed to
get married next June. She said he asked her to marry him on her birthday.
"He wanted to finish school and eventually have his own business," said
Pardo. "He was the most compassionate, caring, loving ambitious youngman
that I have ever met. He had strong family values and he was hoping to pass
that on to his own children." Mikerline Baptiste, Dumel's cousin said he was
a caring person who could turn bad days into good ones. She said when he
entered a room, the whole room lit up. "He had a lot of dreams that were
blown away with his brain," said Baptiste, 23. "He was a fun-loving person
who was very close to his family. He was the spirit of the family. It's
going to be very dark from now on."