Jensen La Vende

The two bod­ies found in a forest­ed area in St Au­gus­tine on Tues­day evening were iden­ti­fied yes­ter­day as teenage school­boys Stephan Singh and Daniel Halls.

In a week in which the na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion was on trou­ble­some stu­dents, par­tic­u­lar­ly teenaged boys and their links to school vi­o­lence and gangs, how the two came to be tar­get of killers yes­ter­day once again drove home just how re­al a con­cern it is.

At least one of the vic­tim's rel­a­tives ex­pressed lit­tle shock at their un­time­ly demise so ear­ly in their lives.Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 4.40 pm Tues­day, res­i­dents of St John's Road heard gun­shots and alert­ed the po­lice.

Of­fi­cers re­spond­ed and found the bod­ies of Singh, 17 and Halls, 16. Po­lice said they were told that the teens were seen as part of a group of five en­ter­ing the bush­es and af­ter the shoot­ing on­ly the two de­ceased were found. Singh, a stu­dent of Trin­i­ty East Col­lege, had an emp­ty re­volver on him.

Po­lice said they had not ruled out the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the oth­er three peo­ple who en­tered the bush with them were sus­pects but they were still search­ing the area yes­ter­day for them as pos­si­ble vic­tims of a crime.

But po­lice said they be­lieved the teens had gone to ei­ther pur­chase drugs or to steal from some­one's mar­i­jua­na gar­den when they were am­bushed and killed. Po­lice al­so spec­u­lat­ed that the two boys may have been set up to be killed by the oth­er three miss­ing peo­ple.

In speak­ing about her son yes­ter­day, Halls' moth­er, Joy, re­ferred to the Old Tes­ta­ment ad­mo­ni­tion hand­ed down to the Jews by God for chil­dren to obey their par­ents lest their lives be short­ened.

Halls quot­ed from the scrip­ture: "Ho­n­our your fa­ther and your moth­er so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giv­ing you", tak­en from the book of Ex­o­dus, as she spoke to the me­dia yes­ter­day at her home at Bam­boo Trace, Up­per Fair­ly Street, Tu­na­puna.

"There is a penal­ty for dis­obe­di­ence and scrip­ture tells when you dis­obey your par­ents you will not live long. I did the best I could do and this is the way God chose for him to go," Halls said, adding that the on­ly ad­vice she could of­fer was for par­ents and chil­dren alike to walk in obe­di­ence.

Halls said her son, who want­ed to be a po­lice of­fi­cer, re­cent­ly be­gan as­so­ci­at­ing him­self with "bad in­flu­ences" and was not lis­ten­ing to her when­ev­er she told him to stay away from them. Halls said when she learned her sec­ond son was killed she was not sur­prised at all be­cause of the life she saw he was liv­ing.

"I was not sur­prised at all be­cause he was a dis­obe­di­ent child. Be­ing around in the neigh­bour­hood you will hear stuff and then he was not com­ing home. He was not rude but he was dis­obe­di­ent," Halls said, adding that her son, a fourth for­mer at Aranguez North, nev­er spoke much.

About a half-an-hour dri­ve away at Ram­goolie Street, Curepe, Singh's god­moth­er, Shal­i­mar Gib­son, said her god­child was like her son.

Say­ing she last saw him the day be­fore he was mur­dered, Gib­son said Singh was nick­named "Pup­py" by rel­a­tives be­cause his fa­ther was nick­named "Dog­gy". She said the last time she saw him she heard his friends call him "Mon­ster", but said she re­buked them from do­ing so in her pres­ence.

Gib­son said the Fourth Form stu­dent want­ed to be a foot­baller and was a very good strik­er. An­oth­er rel­a­tive said the teen al­so once played for lo­cal foot­ball club San Juan Jabloteh.

"He was just jol­ly, al­ways laugh­ing and gig­gling. I don't know what he used to do with friends. I'm not with him 24/7 but when he in this house it was a lev­el of re­spect he showed," Gib­son said.Gib­son added that on Tues­day she dreamt of her god­child and when she heard of two peo­ple be­ing killed she in­stinc­tive­ly knew it was him but hoped it wasn't.

"This was a shock be­cause I dreamt him last night and I kin­da knew he was gonna go but didn't know he was gonna go that time. The dream was a fun­ny one from what I re­mem­ber," Gib­son said.

She said Singh lived in Cunu­pia with his moth­er but would reg­u­lar­ly vis­it her, and was due to vis­it his school this week af­ter he was sus­pend­ed for hav­ing his cell­phone in class.

"Don't let neg­a­tive peo­ple fol­low you and don't fol­low neg­a­tive peo­ple. Have your own head and don't let oth­er peo­ple think for you. The same bad man who putting gun in al­lyuh hand and have al­lyuh killing each oth­er while them old bad man home rock back," Gib­son ad­vised youths who may be in­clined to fol­low bad com­pa­ny.

Gib­son said Singh had al­so re­cent­ly joined the Mus­lim faith and be­lieved his killing may have been gang-re­lat­ed. Halls' moth­er al­so con­firmed he had re­cent­ly joined the Mus­lim faith.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Derek West, prin­ci­pal at Trin­i­ty East, de­scribed Singh as an av­er­age stu­dent. West added that there was coun­selling pro­vid­ed for the stu­dents who knew him yes­ter­day and they had al­so sought as­sis­tance from the Min­istry of

Ed­u­ca­tion for guid­ance of­fi­cers."We are work­ing on the heal­ing process for our boys now," West said.At­tempts to con­tact teach­ers at Aranguez North were un­suc­cess­ful as all calls went unan­swered.