An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

T&T record­ed its high­est mur­der toll of 608 up to mid­day yes­ter­day, mak­ing 2024 the blood­i­est year in the coun­try’s his­to­ry.

This year’s record sur­passed the 605 mur­ders of 2022. Be­tween Mon­day night and yes­ter­day, six mur­ders oc­curred.

Among them was the killing of 27-year-old Adana John at Sec­ond Street, San Juan, which left com­muters and work­ers in the area, who wit­nessed the heinous at­tack, shocked.

Po­lice said John was walk­ing when she was ap­proached by a man who stabbed her mul­ti­ple times about the up­per body and stom­ach with a bro­ken bot­tle at 8 am yes­ter­day.

John, who al­so went by the alias Sixx Boss, col­lapsed on the road in front of the Nice City Chi­nese Restau­rant. She was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where she lat­er suc­cumbed to her in­juries.

One woman, who asked not to be named, de­scribed John’s mur­der as “bru­tal and sense­less.”

Gaz­ing at the pool of blood which re­mained on the road, she lament­ed, “Every hu­man has to die but is the man­ner in which they die.”

In cen­tral Trinidad, po­lice are prob­ing the mur­der of an uniden­ti­fied man in Cunu­pia on Mon­day evening.

Po­lice said at 11.30 pm, the throat of a man of African de­scent was slit af­ter he ex­it­ed a car along the South­ern Main Road, Cunu­pia.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the vic­tim was seat­ed in the back­seat of a red Nis­san Almera when the car stopped in front of Un­lim­it­ed Tyres.

CCTV footage showed the dri­ver and two men who had been seat­ed in the rear of the car ex­it­ing. All three men were record­ed ar­gu­ing, dur­ing which time two of the men grabbed the vic­tim and held him down, while one of them slit his throat, be­fore they re-en­tered the car and sped off.

And just two hours ear­li­er at Rod­ney Road, Chase Vil­lage, a Cara­pichaima man was pur­sued and shot at 9.20 pm.

The vic­tim was iden­ti­fied as Kester Phillip, 35, of Or­ange­field Road, Cara­pichaima.

Po­lice said Phillip was walk­ing west along Der­rick Road, Chase Vil­lage, when up­on reach­ing Rod­ney Road he was ac­cost­ed by an armed man.

Phillip was chased as he ran along Rod­ney Road and shot mul­ti­ple times. He was as­sist­ed by res­i­dents who took him to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he died.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are al­so con­tin­u­ing in­to the mur­der of 18-year-old Rafael Gomez, of Hut­ton Street, St Joseph.

A sec­ond man, aged 26, from Laven­tille Road, San Juan, was al­so in­jured dur­ing the shoot­ing.

Po­lice said the two men were lim­ing at Gomez’s home at 5.10 pm when a sil­ver Toy­ota Field­er Wag­on stopped and two armed men came out and be­gan shoot­ing at them.

As they at­tempt­ed to flee, they were chased and shot mul­ti­ple times.

Gomez died at the scene while the sec­ond man was tak­en to the EWM­SC, where he re­mained hos­pi­talised up to yes­ter­day.

Two in­ci­dents are al­so en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the po­lice. A 29-year-old Venezue­lan na­tion­al who was shot in the up­per left leg at John Street, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, at 6.45 pm on Mon­day, was dis­charged from hos­pi­tal in sta­ble con­di­tion yes­ter­day.

A 49-year-old man was al­so stabbed sev­er­al times dur­ing an ar­gu­ment with an­oth­er man in Curepe on Mon­day evening. He re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal.