Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 49-year-old for­mer sol­dier was shot and killed dur­ing a rob­bery yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around mid­day, Roger Bai­ley, from La Hor­quet­ta, Ari­ma, was ply­ing his pri­vate car for hire in his com­mu­ni­ty.

Bai­ley re­port­ed­ly dropped off two fe­male pas­sen­gers and was on his way to drop an el­der­ly woman to church when he picked up a man along Tumpuna Road South.

As Bai­ley ap­proached to lo­ca­tion the man asked to be dropped off at, he (the man) drew a gun. He robbed Bai­ley of cash be­fore shoot­ing him. The man then robbed the el­der­ly woman of her hand­bag, which con­tained $160 and a Bible. He then ran away.

Bai­ley died on the scene.

In Jan­u­ary 2010, Bai­ley was con­vict­ed of co­caine traf­fick­ing and sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison.

Bai­ley was ar­rest­ed De­cem­ber 6, 2001, af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers found 1.48 ki­los of co­caine hid­den in cof­fee jars in his lug­gage as he was about to board a flight to New York.

Dur­ing his tri­al, Bai­ley de­nied any wrong­do­ing, as he claimed the drugs were in a pack­age which a neigh­bour gave him to de­liv­er to a rel­a­tive in New York. Af­ter he was con­vict­ed by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry be­fore Jus­tice De­van Ram­per­sad, he was dis­hon­ourably dis­charged by the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF).

Mean­while, a man from Ari­ma was killed in an ap­par­ent car-jack­ing on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

At 2.15 am, Char­maine Jack, of Cal­vary Branch Road, Ari­ma, was awak­ened by a car horn and sev­er­al gun­shots. When she checked out­side, she saw blood near the spot where her 24-year-old son Stephen usu­al­ly parks.

Jack con­tact­ed the man who her son had pur­chased his car from al­most two weeks ago and he (the man) checked the GPS track­er at­tached to the ve­hi­cle.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors went to the lo­ca­tion near to Jack’s home, where they found his car aban­doned.

Based on in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the track­er, they went to an­oth­er lo­ca­tion off Blan­chisseuse Road in Ari­ma, where they found Stephen’s body.

He was pro­nounced dead on the scene by a Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer (DMO).

De­tec­tives of the Re­gion Two Homi­cide Bu­reau are prob­ing Bai­ley and Jack’s mur­ders.