A two-month-old ba­by nar­row­ly es­caped death when gun­men killed his fa­ther, who was sleep­ing next to him and his moth­er in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said Mark Phillip Heer­alal, 24, of Sum Sum Hill, Clax­ton Bay had gone to his moth­er’s home at Bayshore West on Fri­day. He stayed in an un­fin­ished con­crete and wood­en struc­ture where he pre­vi­ous­ly resided.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the fam­i­ly re­tired for the night around 11.30 pm on Sat­ur­day. Around 12.05 am Sun­day, Heer­alal’s wife was jolt­ed awake by what she ini­tial­ly thought were fire­crack­ers.

To her hor­ror, she dis­cov­ered Heer­alal mo­tion­less on the bed, bleed­ing from a gun­shot wound to his head. She im­me­di­ate­ly raised an alarm, and rel­a­tives called the E999 hot­line. Of­fi­cers on mo­bile pa­trol re­spond­ed.

Mean­while, po­lice are al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mur­der of a Pe­nal man in a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent. Of­fi­cers said 22-year-old De­shawn Thomp­son of Pe­nal Rock Road was stand­ing with an­oth­er per­son along the SS Erin Road, near Xo­ra Bar and Lounge, around 3 am when a sil­ver Nis­san Ti­i­da pulled up. A gun­man came out of the car and opened fire on Thomp­son.

He was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries. —Kevon Felmine