Derek Achong

5 mur­ders in 48 hrs

Sev­en men were mur­dered in Port-of-Spain, Ari­ma, Co­corite and Ch­agua­nas be­tween Fri­day night and yes­ter­day evening.The week­end's mur­der spree brought the toll for the year to 59. The sev­en mur­ders rep­re­sents one of the blood­i­est week­ends record­ed in re­cent months.The first mur­der oc­curred around 7.45 pm on Fri­day night, when res­i­dents of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) build­ing com­plex at St Paul's Street, East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain, re­port­ed hear­ing a vol­ley of gun­shots.

When the res­i­dents checked they found Kevin "Stumpy" Thomas ly­ing in the build­ing's car park with sev­er­al gun­shot wounds to his head and chest. He died on the scene. Po­lice said Thomas, 28, of Up­per Quar­ry Street, Diego Mar­tin, was a known gang mem­ber, who had a lengthy crim­i­nal record.ASP Ajith Per­sad, Sgt Har­vey and Cpl Charles Bu­drie are prob­ing Thomas' mur­der.

Al­most two hours af­ter Thomas' mur­der, homi­cide de­tec­tives were sum­moned to La­m­ont Street, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, where Ter­ry Gill, was killed in front of his home.Po­lice said that Gill was at home with his wife when he went out­side to check on a noise. His wife told in­ves­ti­ga­tors that af­ter a cou­ple of min­utes she heard sev­er­al gun­shots.

When she rushed out­side, she found her hus­band ly­ing on the doorstep. He was shot five times in the chest. Po­lice have list­ed his mur­der as drug-re­lat­ed.Gun­men again struck again around 7.30 pm on Sat­ur­day, this time at Sey­ja­gat Trace, Co­corite Road, Ari­ma.Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, 31-year-old Brent Del­con was walk­ing out of his home when he was ac­cost­ed by two gun­men who shot him sev­er­al times. The men then drove away in an await­ing ve­hi­cle.

Po­lice said that on hear­ing the gun­shots, Del­con's wife Jes­si­ca Grant ran out of the house and found her wound­ed hus­band. He was tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.In­ves­ti­ga­tors were yet to de­ter­mine the mo­tive be­hind Del­con's mur­der up to late yes­ter­day.Al­most three hours lat­er, 41-year-old Mar­lon Brad­shaw, of Swan Lane, Mal­oney Gar­dens, D'Abadie, was killed in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing in front of his home.

Po­lice said around 11.30 pm, Brad­shaw was en­ter­ing his front gate when a black car pulled in front of his house.The front seat pas­sen­ger low­ered his win­dow and shot Brad­shaw sev­er­al times be­fore the ve­hi­cle sped off. Brad­shaw slumped to the ground where he died.

The fifth mur­der for the week­end oc­curred around 3.45 am yes­ter­day, out­side a bar at Rail­way Road in Ch­agua­nas which is lo­cat­ed me­tres away from the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion.

Re­ports stat­ed that Ronald Nurse, of La­m­ont Street, Ch­agua­nas, was lim­ing at Traxx Bar when he had an ar­gu­ment with a fel­low limer.The ar­gu­ment spilled out on­to the street and af­ter a brief ver­bal ex­change, Nurse be­gan walk­ing away to catch a taxi to his home.

Po­lice said that Nurse's at­tack­er, re­turned in­side the bar and re­turned mo­ments lat­er car­ry­ing a long knife.He then con­front­ed Nurse a sec­ond time dur­ing which he drew the knife and stabbed him sev­er­al times in the chest.

While Nurse at­tempt­ed to run to­wards the near­by po­lice sta­tion for help, the knife-wield­ing man ran away.Nurse col­lapsed a short dis­tance away and was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Af­ter view­ing the CCTV footage from a cam­era po­si­tioned out­side the bar, in­ves­ti­ga­tors went to a house at Robin­son Street, where they ar­rest­ed the 28-year-old sus­pect, from Cum­ber­batch Street, Ch­agua­nas. The blood-stained weapon used in a Nurse's mur­der was al­so re­cov­ered.The ar­rest­ed man is ex­pect­ed to be charged with mur­der lat­er this week af­ter homi­cide de­tec­tives com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Se­nior Supt De­o­dath Du­lalchan, Supt John­ny Abra­ham and In­sp Wayne Lawrence are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Around 4.30 pm, po­lice were con­tact­ed af­ter res­i­dents of Hard­ing Place, Co­corite, re­port­ed­ly heard some gun­shots.West­ern Di­vi­sion Po­lice re­spond­ed where they found a res­i­dent, Sher­man Tou­s­saint, 27, ly­ing on the road with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds to his up­per body.He died on the scene.

Less than 15 min­utes lat­er, homi­cide de­tec­tives were again sum­moned to St Paul's Street, East Dry Riv­er.The vic­tim re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to late yes­ter­day. Po­lice be­lieve the man resided at John John in Laven­tille and was mur­dered by a ri­val gang while walk­ing through the East Port-of-Spain com­mu­ni­ty.Au­top­sies are sched­uled to be per­formed on five vic­tims at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James to­day.