Sascha Wil­son

Gun­shots rang out near a pri­ma­ry school in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day morn­ing, af­ter a hus­band killed his es­tranged wife and him­self, leav­ing pupils, rel­a­tives and the com­mu­ni­ty trau­ma­tised.

The mur­der/sui­cide took place just af­ter 7 am, while 42-year-old Keisha Ma­ri­na Bostic was leav­ing home for work. Bostic taught at a Point Fortin sec­ondary school and was al­so a lawyer.

Guardian Me­dia was told that she mar­ried her hus­band Shamzard Mo­hammed, 41, al­so known as Rocky, a busi­ness­man, in Jan­u­ary but the re­la­tion­ship soon turned sour. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly three months ago, Bostic left him and re­turned to her moth­er’s home at Dray­ton Street.

Her moth­er Mar­va Bostic, is a long­stand­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ac­tivist and is well-known in San Fer­nan­do.

Un­known to Bostic, her hus­band was wait­ing yes­ter­day out­side her home for her to open the front gate. She was sit­ting in her Maz­da 3 when he shot her sev­er­al times in her face, head and ab­domen.

He then shot him­self in the head and died in the yard. Mo­hammed, of Reese Road, Bar­rack­pore, was the hold­er of five li­censed firearms. Two of them were found at the scene, as well as 12 spent shells.

A res­i­dent drove Bostic to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in her car but she died while un­der­go­ing emer­gency care.

By then, sev­er­al rel­a­tives, neigh­bours and friends had gath­ered at the scene.

Po­lice cor­doned off both sides of the street.

Sit­ting on a chair op­po­site her home, sur­round­ed by friends and fam­i­ly, Bostic’s moth­er moaned, wailed and cried. Bostic was the sec­ond of her chil­dren to be mur­dered. Her son, Daniel Bostic, 35, was shot dead in a mosque in San Fer­nan­do in 2015.

Speak­ing to re­porters briefly, she re­called the last time she saw her daugh­ter alive.

“I don’t know what hap­pen. I was not here. The last time I saw my child was this morn­ing at 5.30. I left here 5.30 this morn­ing to go on a job site with all the tools and every­thing. My child hug me up and kiss me,” she sobbed.

Mar­va said Bostic was sup­posed to have picked her up af­ter her den­tal ap­point­ment at 3 pm.

She added, “Some­body call me a lil af­ter 7 this morn­ing and tell me look they now kill Keisha, she hus­band now kill she and he dead in front the house. That’s all I know.”

The griev­ing moth­er said her daugh­ter left Mo­hammed be­cause he was “no f---ing good.”

Mo­hammed was al­leged­ly in a lot of debt and Bostic had helped him fi­nan­cial­ly.

“I think he was in a lot of debts and what he por­trayed be­fore is not what she was see­ing and she took the safest path to get out of the re­la­tion­ship,” said her rel­a­tive Sharon Loney-Thomas.

Loney-Thomas, a for­mer PNM coun­cil­lor, said as far as she knew, Bostic re­ceived no death threats.

“He came await­ing her to open the gate to go to work and he came not with his ve­hi­cle, an­oth­er ve­hi­cle, so she wasn’t re­al­ly ex­pect­ing it and ac­cord­ing to what they said at the hos­pi­tal, is about eight shots she col­lect­ed in her face,” she said.

The cou­ple had no chil­dren to­geth­er.

Bostic was al­so a for­mer sec­re­tary of the San Fer­nan­do West Con­stituen­cy. Sev­er­al PNM mem­bers, in­clud­ing for­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, for­mer may­or Ian Ather­ly and deputy leader Joan Yuille-Williams, were at the scene.

Re­grel­lo de­scribed Bostic as a com­mit­ted, ded­i­cat­ed, fo­cused and hard-work­ing woman.

He said, “There are so many sto­ries out­side there about what went wrong, but the fact is that a life has been lost. A moth­er lost an­oth­er child and a fam­i­ly is in grief. Let’s hope that our men folk can be re­spon­si­ble, get their act to­geth­er.

“There is no right way to do the wrong thing. I mean for two fam­i­lies to be suf­fer­ing here be­cause of the in­dis­cre­tion of one per­son be­ing un­able to deal with the is­sues.”

Mean­while, the shoot­ing left sev­er­al stu­dents of Anstey Memo­r­i­al Girls’ An­gli­can School, which is op­po­site Bostic’s home, trau­ma­tised. The in­ci­dent was wit­nessed by at least one pupil.

Sev­er­al par­ents who had al­ready dropped their chil­dren to school re­turned af­ter the in­ci­dent to take them home.

One par­ent said, “As far as she (daugh­ter) tell me, she heard about four gun­shots. I get a call from the teacher say­ing to hur­ry and pick up your daugh­ter be­cause of the sit­u­a­tion that hap­pen with the mur­der that take place.”

Of­fi­cers from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion vis­it­ed the school to pro­vide coun­selling to the chil­dren.

Beryl Ri­ley, Guid­ance Of­fi­cer 2, told Guardian Me­dia that the chil­dren were left scared.

“We are here to work with the stu­dents who would have wit­nessed this sit­u­a­tion and those who would have heard the gun­shots and heard about this sit­u­a­tion. A lot of them are ter­ri­fied, they are scared but we are on board, we are on point, here at the school to en­sure that they calm. We are work­ing with them we are try­ing to get them set­tled. It is a cri­sis for them.”

Asked to com­ment on vi­o­lence near schools, as this came on the heels of a shootout near the Rose Hill RC Pri­ma­ry School in Port-of-Spain on Mon­day, she said, “We do know that crime is on the rise and it is un­for­tu­nate that it is com­ing close to the schools of the na­tion and this is of great con­cern to us and there­fore we are hop­ing that the po­lice of­fi­cers and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will con­tin­ue to work in or­der to have the sit­u­a­tion mit­i­gat­ed and that it will not hap­pen in the coun­try and even near the schools in the na­tion.”

Po­lice con­firmed that they found a Glock pis­tol with an emp­ty mag­a­zine and a Sig Sauer pis­tol with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing 11 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion at the scene.

MoS of­fers con­do­lences

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and the min­istry’s ex­ec­u­tive team and staff ex­tend con­do­lences to the be­reaved fam­i­ly of Bostic.

A state­ment said the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion of the min­istry would pro­vide all the nec­es­sary sup­port to the staff and stu­dents dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time.

“May her soul rest In peace,” the state­ment added.

ASL con­cerned about crime

The As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers (ASL) has al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences to Bostic’s fam­i­ly.

ASL pres­i­dent Michael Rooplal said while he did not know her per­son­al­ly, the cir­cum­stances of her death have come as a shock to every­one in the south­ern com­mu­ni­ty.

“I join with oth­er cit­i­zens in ex­press­ing con­cern at the spate of crime that has cur­rent­ly en­gulfed our coun­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it re­lates to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and crimes in­volv­ing the use of firearms,” he said.

We are in shock

Mean­while, Mo­hammed’s home­town has al­so been left in shock.

“This is not the Rocky we know. The Rocky we know is pleas­ant, a per­son in the com­mu­ni­ty al­ways will­ing to give back,” he said.

The man, who did not want to be named, said Mo­hammed once ran a bar from his premis­es and al­so owned a bak­ery and a stock­pile not far from his Reese Road home.

He said re­cent­ly, Mo­hammed pro­vid­ed his back­hoe free of charge to as­sist with road re­pairs at Reese Road.

“He did a lot of com­mu­ni­ty work. He was in­volved in sports. He was well known. He came from a de­cent and hum­ble home.”

He said Mo­hammed lived with his el­der­ly moth­er.