Co­corite shoot­ing vic­tim Steven An­drew Gon­za­lves Jr died on Thurs­day night be­fore doc­tors could have car­ried out the sec­ond test to de­ter­mine whether or not to keep him on a ven­ti­la­tor ma­chine.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian a short while ago, a fe­male rel­a­tive, who did not dis­close her name, con­firmed Gon­za­lves died “nat­u­ral­ly.”

The fam­i­ly is said to be very dis­traught and will now await the re­sults of an au­top­sy on Mon­day.

Gon­za­lves Jr’s fa­ther, Steven Gon­za­lves Sr, yes­ter­day told the T&T Guardian that his son’s con­di­tion nev­er im­proved as his brain was not re­spond­ing to any med­ica­tion.

Gon­za­lves, 27 and his dri­ving in­struc­tor Naresh Har­ri­lal, 50, of Cunu­pia, were in Har­ri­lal’s Nis­san Almera dri­ving along the west­bound lane of West­ern Main Road on Wednes­day when they were shot near the Co­corite walkover.

Po­lice be­lieve the men were hit by stray bul­lets as there was a re­port of a shoot­ing at La­dy Ho­choy Cir­cu­lar Road, near the en­trance to the Com­mu­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal of Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tists, around the same time.

Po­lice be­lieve the stray bul­lets from the shootout may have crossed the east­bound lane of the West­ern Main Road be­fore strik­ing Gon­za­les, who was in the dri­ver’s seat. They be­lieve one of the bul­lets may have then ric­o­cheted off Gon­za­lves and hit Har­ri­lal in the eye.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.