Geisha Kow­lessar

Heav­i­ly-armed gun­men stormed a house in Gon­za­les, ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing and ex­e­cut­ed four fam­i­ly mem­bers, as they lay sleep­ing. Among them were three sib­lings.

The vic­tims were iden­ti­fied as:

�2 Asha Roberts, 24

�2 Javon Roberts, 18

�2 LL Roberts, 13

�2 Car­men McHutchin­son, 68

Asha's four-year-old daugh­ter, Zara Sylvester, who was al­so in the house at the time of the at­tack, was al­so shot. Up to late yes­ter­day, she was list­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion at Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, Her in­juries were said to be not life-threat­en­ing. Mario McHutchin­son, Car­men's 43-year-old son and step­fa­ther of Asha, Javon and LL saved the life of his eight-year-old daugh­ter Mike­lia by jump­ing through a win­dow and hid­ing in some near­by bush­es when the gun­men opened fire. Asha's 23-year-old sis­ter Je­hial, who al­so sur­vived the at­tack by run­ning in­to a neigh­bour's house for refuge, was list­ed at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in sta­ble con­di­tion af­ter be­ing shot.

The killings, ac­cord­ing to Pamela Roberts-Glas­gow, aunt of the Roberts sib­lings, al­leged­ly stemmed from an in­ci­dent on Car­ni­val Mon­day. Await­ing the au­top­sy re­sults at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James yes­ter­day, Roberts-Glas­gow claimed that Je­hial had been threat­ened by gun­men from Gon­za­les, who ac­cused her of en­cour­ag­ing "en­e­mies" in­to the area. "On Car­ni­val Mon­day. two guys from Bath Street came by Je­hiel to get their hair plait­ed. "Guys at Gon­za­les saw that and they were an­gered and they got in­to a heat­ed ar­gu­ment with my niece and they threat­ened to kill her. They made good on their promise," Roberts-Glas­gow said. De­scrib­ing the killings as "a mas­sacre" Roberts-Glas­gow said the gun­men stormed her fam­i­ly's home on Fair View Hill, Gon­za­les, around 12.30 am by break­ing down a door on the south­ern side of the build­ing. "My sis­ter lost three chil­dren in one hit. What this place re­al­ly com­ing to? "This place re­al­ly gone mad. This is a mas­sacre, be­cause they come for every­body. Them fel­las would not have even spared my four-year-old niece," Roberts-Glas­gow said.

Im­plor­ing the young men to cease the sense­less killings, Roberts-Glas­gow al­so begged that there be no re­tal­i­a­tion for the mur­ders. She ex­pressed faith in the po­lice, adding that it was on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore the crim­i­nals were brought to jus­tice. "But we not about no street jus­tice, and we are not go­ing down that way. We be­lieve the po­lice would do their work," Roberts-Glas­gow said. Spear­head­ing the probe, act­ing ASP Sa­hadeo Singh said the po­lice had an idea who the per­pe­tra­tors and were work­ing on leads.

Homi­cide of­fi­cers, un­der Sr Supt David Nedd, In­sp An­cil Cor­bette and Sgt Michael Veronique, al­so in­ter­viewed sev­er­al res­i­dents yes­ter­day. Po­lice sources said af­ter last year's mur­der of re­put­ed Gon­za­les gan­g­leader Joel "Snake Eye" Phillip, 34, gang mem­bers ac­cused a ri­val gang from Bath Street of com­mit­ting the act.

Gon­za­les res­i­dents said since Phillip's mur­der, it be­came "com­mon knowl­edge" that "bor­der lines" were set up be­tween Bath Street and Gon­za­les. Five years ago, Roberts-Glas­gow's sis­ter Sher­ma Roberts al­so lost her life to a bul­let. Sher­ma, a URP work­er, and her friend Don­na George, a pre-school teacher, were each shot twice in the head at Roberts' home at Car­nelia Gar­dens in Di­a­mond Vale, Diego Mar­tin. Roberts' hus­band was a sol­dier and George's spouse was a Coast Guard of­fi­cer.