Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

More than a week af­ter nine-year-old J’Lay­na Arm­strong and three oth­ers were gunned down on La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant, po­lice say no ar­rests have been made in con­nec­tion with the quadru­ple mur­der.

J’Lay­na, along with her un­cle Asim Arm­strong, Chelsea Ed­wards and Obateaiye Lat­iff, were trav­el­ling in a red Mit­subishi Lancer near a Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Church along La­dy Young Road on the night of April 19 when an­oth­er ve­hi­cle pulled along­side them.

Gun­men opened fire on the oc­cu­pants, killing all four.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered 30 spent 5.56 rounds and 15 spent 9mm shells at the scene.

Po­lice have clas­si­fied the killing of Arm­strong as gang-re­lat­ed. How­ev­er, one in­ves­ti­ga­tor told Guardian Me­dia that while there are per­sons of in­ter­est, no one has yet been for­mal­ly ar­rest­ed or placed un­der cau­tion.

“There are names cir­cu­lat­ing, but we don’t of­fi­cial­ly have any­one un­der cau­tion as yet for that mur­der,” the of­fi­cer said.

“If there are per­sons of in­ter­est who have been ar­rest­ed by di­vi­sion­al units in any area, they have not been for­mal­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion team as yet.”

He added that al­though no sus­pects are cur­rent­ly in cus­tody, of­fi­cers are pur­su­ing what he de­scribed as “strong leads” in the case.

When Guardian Me­dia re­turned to La­dy Young Road on Thurs­day af­ter­noon, traf­fic flowed steadi­ly through the area. A small num­ber of peo­ple were seen out­side near­by busi­ness­es, in­clud­ing road­side ven­dors and a small au­to parts shop.

One busi­ness­woman, who asked not to be named, said she has no­ticed a marked de­cline in ac­tiv­i­ty since the killings.

“It’s re­al­ly drab and drea­ry out here. On­ly ear­li­er this week I start­ed to see peo­ple ven­tur­ing out­side more. Peo­ple are grad­u­al­ly re­cov­er­ing from what hap­pened, but it is still on our minds,” she said.

Sev­er­al oth­er res­i­dents de­clined to speak, even af­ter as­sur­ances that their iden­ti­ties would be pro­tect­ed.

In Nicholasville, San Juan, where J’Lay­na lived, few res­i­dents were seen out­doors. Those who were out­side al­so de­clined to com­ment on the in­ci­dent.