Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A teenag­er, a for­mer mur­der con­vict and a sol­dier were mur­dered in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents be­tween Fri­day night and Sat­ur­day morn­ing, tak­ing the an­nu­al mur­der count one short of 600.

On Fri­day night, of­fi­cers from the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion were on pa­trol along Tra­garete Road, Port-of-Spain, when they heard a vol­ley of gun­shots near Pic­ton Street in New­town.

When they reached the lo­ca­tion, they found a man ly­ing un­con­scious on the road and an­oth­er wound­ed man stand­ing at the side of the road.

The man on the road, who was lat­er iden­ti­fied as 17-year-old Je­re­mi­ah Rogers, was pro­nounced dead on the scene. The wound­ed man was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice found over three dozen spent shells on the scene.

Al­so, at 9.18 pm, po­lice re­spond­ed to a shoot­ing with two vic­tims at Cedar Hill Road, Clax­ton Bay.

The men were re­port­ed­ly lim­ing out­side a restau­rant when a gun­man ap­proached them and shot them sev­er­al times be­fore run­ning away.

Wen­dell “Piper” Sim­mons, 34, died on the scene, while his friend was tak­en for treat­ment.

In 2016, Sim­mons and an­oth­er man were sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison when they plead­ed guilty to felony mud­er af­ter spend­ing 11 years on re­mand.

The men were ac­cused of killing Nigel Allen, 32, of Simp­son Brown Ter­race, Co­coyea Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, af­ter kid­nap­ping him.

Un­der the felony mur­der rule, the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der is waived in cir­cum­stances where death oc­curs dur­ing a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence.

In the third in­ci­dent, a 23-year-old sol­dier was mur­dered near his Ari­ma home on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, at 2.45 am, of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (NDTF) re­spond­ed to a re­port of a shoot­ing at a com­mu­ni­ty off By­pass Road in Ari­ma.

When they ar­rived, they found a man ly­ing at the side of the road next to a bul­let-rid­dled car. The vic­tim, who was lat­er iden­ti­fied as Kishon Huyghew, was pro­nounced dead at the scene by a Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer.

Huyghew, of By­pass Road, was a mem­ber of the T&T Reg­i­ment and was last as­signed to Camp Og­den in St James.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered ten spent 9 mm shell cas­ings near Huyghew’s body.

Au­top­sies on the three vic­tims are ex­pect­ed to be done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James lat­er this week.

The an­nu­al mur­der count stood at 599 up to late yes­ter­day. There were 577 mur­ders last year.