RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In a dark bushy field in New Grant dur­ing the wee hours of yes­ter­day morn­ing, four peo­ple in­clud­ing two Venezue­lans were lined up and shot dead by mul­ti­ple gun­men.

Po­lice have iden­ti­fied the vic­tims as Aaron George, 35, Venezue­lan na­tion­al Guimar Jose Rausseo Mar­cano, aka Maria, and Dar­nel Mitchell, 35, of Sa­do Road, South Man­zanil­la Road, Man­zanil­la.

The fourth vic­tim, al­so a Venezue­lan, was iden­ti­fied as Jose Ser­an­no. Po­lice have no in­for­ma­tion on his oc­cu­pa­tion or ad­dress.

Po­lice said George had three ad­dress­es, the first in Bal­main Cou­va where he lived with his wife, an­oth­er in Fyz­abad and the third at Hope Road, Princes Town which he shared with Mar­cano.

Ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­veal that there was a drug link to the quadru­ple killings.

A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the four vic­tims were brought to the dark area where they were killed ex­e­cu­tion-style.

George at­tempt­ed to run and he fell face down on the right side of Dai­ly Road, New Grant.

The oth­er three bod­ies were found ly­ing face down a short dis­tance off the road.

The area does not have elec­tric­i­ty or street lights and is usu­al­ly cul­ti­vat­ed by gar­den­ers.

Po­lice said around 6:30 am, gar­den­er Kr­ishen­dath Rooplal was on his way to tend to his crops when he saw the first body.

He called the po­lice and three more bod­ies were dis­cov­ered.

All of the bod­ies bore bul­let wounds to the back of the head and low­er back.

Of­fi­cers led by Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob and Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Wayne Mo­hammed dis­cov­ered spent shells fired from a 9mm se­mi-au­to­mat­ic pis­tol and a 12-gauge car­tridge.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said George and Mar­cano were in a re­la­tion­ship and he left his mar­i­tal home in Cou­va to stay at her rent­ed apart­ment.

Of­fi­cers have launched a trace on the char­ac­ters of all the de­ceased. The bod­ies have been re­moved to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre where au­top­sies will be done to­mor­row.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Se­nior Supt Mo­hammed urged the pop­u­la­tion to sup­port the po­lice in its crack­down of crime.

“Through­out T&T I want to urge you to say some­thing if you see some­thing. If you see strange ve­hi­cles, tell us, we come and check it out. We don’t want any set of re­oc­cur­rence of this. See some­thing, say some­thing,” he added. 

Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ja­cob who is in charge of in­tel­li­gence and in­ves­ti­ga­tions said the po­lice will work as­sid­u­ous­ly to solve the quadru­ple mur­ders.

“The TTPS will be work­ing to solve this heinous crime. We have ac­ti­vat­ed all sec­tions of the TTPS re­spon­si­ble for in­ves­ti­ga­tions. We are at the stage where we have par­tic­u­lar leads and will solve these heinous mur­ders. We have the spe­cial ev­i­dence re­cov­ery unit, crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tions unit and with­in a short time, we will get to the bot­tom of this,” he said.

Ja­cob urged any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the mur­ders to come for­ward and as­sist the po­lice.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist can con­tact Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS.