Luckinson Oruma, 60, a Nigerian national was shot last Tuesday just before 11 a.m. in front of the Colonnade Hotel, Boston. He was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, where he later died.
A man accused of shooting and killing Oruma during a carjacking appeared in court the next day after Police arrested him hours after the incident.
Police said multiple eyewitnesses helped lead them to the suspect, Phillip Foy, 34, who was taken into custody less than 200 yards away from the shooting scene. A gun and a knife were recovered near the scene, police said.
Foy was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court on charges of murder, armed carjacking and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Police said he told officials that he went up to the cab and asked for a ride to Mansfield. Luckinson Oruma refused to drive there, and Foy grabbed the victim and pulled him out of the cab.
Prosecutors allege Foy shot Luckinson Oruma nine times, including one time in the back.
“Mr. Oruma fell to the ground and the defendant stood over him and fired a few more times, while he was down,” Assistant District Attorney John Verner said.
Police said Foy admitted to shooting Luckinson Oruma and stealing his cab.
“He’s a coward,” a relative of the victim said of Foy outside court.
Foy was held without bail. He will return to court in July.
“I just hope this person does his time for the crime he committed and hopefully he finds peace,” Oruma’s son, Jeffrey Oruma, said Tuesday. “I just hope he’s able to live with it and, hopefully, God forgives him for whatever he did.”
Luckinson Oruma was a father of five who worked to provide for his family who lived in Nigeria and recently reunited.
After so many years we were apart, we all came together, all my brothers, my sister. He saw all of us through college,” Jeffrey Oruma said.
The owner of Independent Taxi said Luckinson Oruma was married and called him a “prince of a guy.”
“He left for work to put bread on his table. He was just a peach of a guy. We’re all devastated,” said Joe Litvack, the Taxi association’s treasurer.
“He’s got five kids. A wife. They all depend on him,” said his boss Mr. Summers. “It’s going to be a sad, sad loss.”
“He’d go out, work 10 hours for six days a week. You get to know a guy.”
Princewill Oruma, another of Oruma’s sons, said he hopes his father didn’t suffer.
“Trying to shop for a good gift for my father for Father’s Day, but at this point, I’ll be shopping for funeral homes,” he said.
$36,520, has been raised by a GoFundMe page bythe Taxi Association.
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