Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter he was re­leased from prison a few years ago, for­mer felony mur­der con­vict Wen­dell Sim­mons, 43, vowed nev­er to re­turn. How­ev­er, his plans for a new life came to a trag­ic end when he was shot to death in Clax­ton Bay.

“He was hap­py and en­joy­ing life,” said his griev­ing aunt Mar­va Sim­mons, 69, who said she last saw him when he left home for work on Thurs­day night.

Pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions stat­ed that around 9.10 pm Sim­mons was lim­ing at JJJ Lit­tle Kitchen Roti Shop, on Cedar Hill Road, Clax­ton Bay, when a masked man dressed in a hood­ie ran out of the bush­es and be­gan fir­ing at him.

Even af­ter Sim­mons fell to the ground, the gun­man con­tin­ued fir­ing at him. Sim­mons died at the scene. An­oth­er man was shot in the el­bow and was treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice are still try­ing to de­ter­mine a mo­tive.

In an in­ter­view at her Tor­tu­ga home yes­ter­day, his aunt said she had no idea why some­one would want to hurt him.

“That was my re­al lov­ing nephew, re­al lov­ing nephew. He was re­al nice. He wasn’t in no trou­ble when he come out and thing. Every­thing was go­ing good with him. He now start to see his lil way and thing and this thing come and hap­pen,” she said.

“I don’t know what it is cause it be­cause he nev­er tell me that he had any prob­lem out­side.”

She con­sid­ered Sim­mons her son as she had cared for him since he was a ba­by. His moth­er lives in the Unit­ed States.

Sim­mons and Nigel “Cat” Ro­driguez were charged with the mur­der of Nigel Allen who was found in a grave on De­cem­ber 19, 2005, al­most two weeks af­ter he went miss­ing. He had been stran­gled and stabbed.

Sim­mons and Ro­driguez were charged with his mur­der and spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten years await­ing tri­al. In 2016 they plead­ed guilty to felony mur­der and were sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison.

Sim­mon’s aunt de­scribed him as a jovial and hard­work­ing per­son.

“Since he come out of prison he nev­er get him­self in­volved in no trou­ble. He was just peace­ful and hap­py. He al­ways used to say he not do­ing noth­ing to go back in­side again,” she said.

She said just three years ago her son Pe­ter Joseph was gunned down at his home in Clax­ton Bay.

“Every day is a killing ... I does be afraid to put on the ra­dio to lis­ten to the news be­cause when I hear it I re­mem­ber my son who got killed,” she said.

Of­fi­cers of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.