One of the main sus­pects, who was held in con­nec­tion with this morn­ing's quadru­ple mur­der in Las Cuevas where re­put­ed drug and gun smug­gler, Vaughn 'Sand­man' Mieres, his wife, Ali­ka "Let­ty" De­here and two oth­ers were killed has been iden­ti­fied as one of Mieres' key ac­quain­tance.

The sus­pect, po­lice said was shot and wound­ed by po­lice dur­ing a chase. He is cur­rent­ly at a med­ical in­sti­tu­tion un­der heavy po­lice guard.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the plan ex­e­cut­ed seemed to be well-or­ches­trat­ed as the gun­men en­tered the area in a Hyundai Tuc­son and AD Wag­on which they burnt and es­caped via a wait­ing pirogue.

Po­lice said high-pow­ered as­sault ri­fles were used in the dead­ly at­tack that oc­curred short­ly af­ter 4 am.

Mieres, De­here and two of his body­guards, whose names are yet to be dis­closed were killed. It is be­lieved that the killings were linked to an in­ci­dent in June where there was an at­tempt on the lives of two of Mieres' chil­dren.

The crime scene detective at the Las Cuevas home where Vaughn 'Sandman' Mieres, his wife and to men were shot dead. Photo by Mark Bassant.

Po­lice said they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that Mieres found out who were the mas­ter­mind and hench­men in­volved in that at­tack and we're sus­pect­ed to be plan­ning "dead­ly re­venge".

Po­lice of­fi­cers from sev­er­al units in­clud­ing Homi­cide and Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions are cur­rent­ly pro­cess­ing the scene.

The en­tire area is cor­doned off. Mieres lived in a split lev­el house on a hill over­look­ing the coastal wa­ters.

There are al­so aer­i­al search­es and sur­veil­lance be­ing done by he­li­copters be­long­ing to the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency. The coast guard are al­so pa­trolling the wa­ters.

On June 12, gun­men opened fire on a ve­hi­cle trans­port­ing two of Mieres' chil­dren along Bel­mont Cir­clu­ar Road, near Prov­i­dence Girls' Catholic School, a short dis­tance away from the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion.

Three stu­dents were treat­ed for in­ju­ries and men­tal trau­ma, af­ter the dri­ve-by shoot­ing.

The dri­ver of the van trans­port­ing the chil­dren, James Gor­don, of Mara­cas was al­so shot but man­aged to es­cape by run­ning away.

Two of the in­ju­red, aged six and 15, were iden­ti­fied as Mieres' chil­dren.

The scene at Belmont Circular Road where gunmen opened fired on a vehicle in which Sandman's daughters were travelling on June 12.

They were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for emer­gency treat­ment.

An­oth­er 18-year-old stu­dent was shot in her leg.

In Sep­tem­ber 2017, Mieres, was charged with con­spir­a­cy to mur­der Sel­wyn ‘Robo­cop’ Alex­is, in Oc­to­ber 2014.

Alex­is, the leader of an En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas gang, was mur­dered on Ju­ly 17 2016.

Mieres, 44, of School Street, Las Cuevas Vil­lage, ap­peared be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Nanette Forde-John, in the Port of Spain 8th Mag­is­trates’ Court, and was lat­er re­leased on $450,000 bail.

Mieres was ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at his home for dan­ger­ous drugs be­tween the hours of 11 pm on Au­gust 30, 2017 and 8.15 pm on Au­gust 31, 2017.

Dur­ing the search po­lice al­leged­ly seized US$5,330, TT$1,100 in cash and sev­er­al pieces of cam­ou­flage cloth­ing.

Mieres had been ar­rest­ed dur­ing the 2011 State of Emer­gency and was lat­er charged with be­ing a gang leader.

He was sub­se­quent­ly re­leased on bail.

Police in Las Cuevas after Vaughn 'Sandman' Mieres, his wife and to men were shot dead. Photo by Mark Bassant.