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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Guanapo residents flee after siblings’ murders

Fam­i­ly calls for jus­tice

by

Shane Superville
515 days ago
20230923

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Even as po­lice con­tin­ue to probe the mur­ders of four sib­lings at their Heights of Gua­napo, Ari­ma home, the chil­dren’s moth­er claims she does not know why the fam­i­ly was tar­get­ed, while an­oth­er rel­a­tive is call­ing for jus­tice for the fam­i­ly.

The sib­lings, Faith Pe­terkin, 10, Ar­i­an­na Pe­terkin, 14, Shane Pe­terkin, 17, and Tiffany Pe­terkin, 19, were gunned down at their Grav­el Road, La Re­treat Ex­ten­sion home around 12.25 am on Thurs­day.

Five oth­er rel­a­tives were wound­ed in the at­tack.

In an in­ter­view with an­oth­er me­dia house yes­ter­day, Aneesa Mo­hammed, the moth­er of the Pe­terkin sib­lings, re­called part of the or­deal.

“When I peep in the girls’ room I just run out­side be­cause I didn’t see no­body mov­ing. Shini­ka was the on­ly one who didn’t die and that’s be­cause the gun jammed,” she said.

Mo­hammed lament­ed that she did not know what pro­voked the at­tack, as her son, Shane, was not in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“My child didn’t de­serve this you know,” she said.

Mo­hammed said de­spite the grief, she took some so­lace in the fact that they had a last in­ter­ac­tion in con­ver­sa­tion over a meal of sa­da roti and fried sausages be­fore the at­tack.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty again yes­ter­day, where a qui­et, gloomy at­mos­phere pre­vailed.

The fam­i­ly’s house and sev­er­al oth­ers in the neigh­bour­hood were locked up. The on­ly signs of life at the house were pet dogs along with a few chick­ens and ducks that were reared by the fam­i­ly.

A rel­a­tive, who lives near the Pe­terkin home, said she and her fam­i­ly had a hard time sleep­ing in the af­ter­math of the mur­ders, even as po­lice ve­hi­cles were parked in near­by tracks keep­ing watch in­to the ear­ly hours of yes­ter­day.

“In a way, I felt a lit­tle safe be­cause a jeep parked down here. I scared to sleep in my house. Whole night me and my hus­band up, he held a cut­lass be­cause we afraid they come back. We don’t know who do it. We don’t even have an idea of who do it,” she said.

The rel­a­tive said two of her chil­dren were al­so wound­ed in the at­tack and they un­der­went emer­gency surgery on Thurs­day.

The rel­a­tive al­so dis­missed claims by some so­cial me­dia users that the mur­ders were in re­tal­i­a­tion over the rob­bery and as­sault of a man in the area.

She con­tend­ed that Shane Pe­terkin had a pas­sion for mu­sic and as­sist­ed his fa­ther in rear­ing live­stock.

“Shane would al­ways be on the com­put­er. He would help his fa­ther with the cow, rake up the yard. He nev­er used to be in any gang thing. His on­ly friends were his broth­er. That child was sav­ing mon­ey to get his dri­ver’s li­cence,” she said.

The rel­a­tive said Shane was gift­ed two com­put­er mon­i­tors about three days be­fore his mur­der.

She said the el­dest of the sib­lings, Tiffany, al­so kept to her­self and did not med­dle in any­thing il­le­gal.

Com­ment­ing on the lack of ac­tiv­i­ty in the neigh­bour­hood yes­ter­day, the rel­a­tive said most of their neigh­bours had moved out in the wake of the at­tack, as they were fear­ful for their own safe­ty. She added that the res­i­dents who re­mained did not want to ven­ture out­doors even dur­ing the day­time for fear of the gun­men re­turn­ing.

“The whole neigh­bour­hood move out. Every­body gone. Every­body leave their things and gone af­ter this killing,” she said.

“You see this killing with these four chil­dren that the whole neigh­bour­hood raised, they left. The whole neigh­bour­hood know them chil­dren since they were ba­bies.”

The rel­a­tive de­scribed the mur­ders as heart­less and said she hoped the killers would be brought to jus­tice for their crimes.

One res­i­dent, who ven­tured out to a par­lour fur­ther down La Re­treat Ex­ten­sion, said she heard the sound of the gun­fire ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing. She said it was a deeply un­set­tling ex­pe­ri­ence and said she want­ed to leave the neigh­bour­hood but ad­mit­ted she did not have the fi­nances to do so.

“No­body wants their chil­dren to be in an en­vi­ron­ment like this, where you have to be wor­ry­ing about them at every hour of the day. It’s not a nice feel­ing but we have to find a way to make it work,” she said.

While on the scene, a po­lice SUV from the North­ern Di­vi­sion Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol slow­ly drove through the dirt tracks con­nect­ing the neigh­bour­hood.

The ve­hi­cle drove in­to the open yard of the Pe­terkin fam­i­ly and turned in­to a nar­row track. The of­fi­cers got out briefly to look around the neigh­bour­hood and got back in be­fore dri­ving off.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said po­lice from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion II were fol­low­ing sev­er­al leads.

One of­fi­cer said the po­lice were con­tin­u­ing to treat the mur­ders with the “ut­most se­ri­ous­ness.”


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