An­gry rel­a­tives and vil­lagers in Williamsville yes­ter­day crit­i­cised the po­lice for al­leged­ly fail­ing to re­spond to a re­port about a masked man lurk­ing in the bush­es short­ly be­fore the mur­der of 40-year-old Al­lan Sama­roo.

Had the po­lice re­spond­ed prompt­ly, they be­lieve of­fi­cers might have scared off the killer and saved Sama­roo’s life. While fam­i­ly, friends, and in­ves­ti­ga­tors tried to un­earth the rea­son be­hind his mur­der, they agreed that the killer would have known his rou­tine. As he did most morn­ings, Sama­roo walked out of his Es­mer­al­da Branch Trace home to wait for his em­ploy­er, the own­er of a ceil­ing com­pa­ny, to pick him up for work at the junc­tion. Short­ly af­ter he ar­rived, around 7 am, a loud ex­plo­sion was heard, and neigh­bours found him ly­ing on the road, bleed­ing from a gun­shot wound to the head. The sus­pect had been hid­ing in the near­by bush­es.

About an hour ear­li­er, a res­i­dent claimed he saw a masked man, dressed in a cov­er­all, lurk­ing in the bush­es. He called out to the sus­pect, who ran off. The neigh­bour then called the po­lice, but no one re­spond­ed.