An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The cold-blood­ed killing of spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor on Tues­day night, as he walked out of a church ser­vice with his wife and two young chil­dren in New­town, Port-of-Spain, has left the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty in tears but al­so wary of the mes­sage be­ing sent by those who re­port­ed­ly or­ches­trat­ed the shoot­ing.

The shock­ing mur­der, which was de­scribed as a “hit” in many quar­ters, has been la­belled as gang-re­lat­ed by the po­lice.

How­ev­er, this the­o­ry was dis­missed by mem­bers of the pub­lic, le­gal lu­mi­nar­ies and Hec­tor’s peers yes­ter­day, who all claimed his death had been care­ful­ly and de­lib­er­ate­ly planned.

The 43-year-old fa­ther of two was shot mul­ti­ple times at 7.30 pm, as he left the Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist (SDA) Church, Stan­more Av­enue, Queen’s Park West.

It was al­leged that as Hec­tor and his wife, among oth­ers, walked to their re­spec­tive ve­hi­cles up­on con­clu­sion of the ser­vice, a black SUV and a Nis­san B15 pulled along­side Hec­tor’s car and oc­cu­pants opened fire on him, hit­ting him square­ly in the chest.

The as­sailants re­port­ed­ly sped off as Hec­tor fell to the ground.

Per­sons near­by rushed to as­sist and took Hec­tor to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he was pro­nounced dead at 7.51 pm.

The shoot­ing took place in full view of oth­er parish­ioners as Hec­tor walked to his car, which was parked at the cor­ner of Stan­more Av­enue and Al­bion Street.

Hec­tor and his fam­i­ly had at­tend­ed the ser­vice be­tween 5.30 pm and 7.30 pm, where he de­liv­ered a brief ser­mon.

Un­aware of the fate that await­ed him out­side the church, it was a con­fi­dent Hec­tor who wished all present and on­line, “A very hap­py, a very pros­per­ous and a spir­it-filled New Year.”

At the time, he said, “God has been very good to us.”

He re­called be­ing wel­comed in­to the bo­som of the SDA move­ment when he first joined the church.

In what can on­ly be de­scribed as fore­telling, Hec­tor went on, “We have had a very bloody year in 2024 for Trinidad and To­ba­go. Right now, we are un­der a State of Emer­gency but re­gard­less of what is hap­pen­ing out there, God has pro­tect­ed us.”

At the time, he pro­claimed, “God has sus­tained us and we are here to say God we are with you, for now and for­ev­er more.”

Of­fi­cers lat­er re­cov­ered a to­tal of 15 9mm spent shell cas­ings in the area where Hec­tor was shot.

Hec­tor’s mur­der, which was the last to oc­cur for 2024, pushed the year­ly mur­der toll to 624, which is the high­est ever record­ed in this coun­try’s his­to­ry.

Hec­tor lived at Irish Av­enue, Glen­coe, with his fam­i­ly.

Neigh­bours yes­ter­day de­scribed the house as one where laugh­ter and mu­sic was al­ways heard, as they said Hec­tor was a “fam­i­ly man.” They said he would usu­al­ly be seen play­ing with his chil­dren out­side, and was an up­stand­ing mem­ber in the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty.

Tes­ti­fy­ing as to Hec­tor’s un­blem­ished char­ac­ter, at­tor­ney Ian Brooks said, “He was an ex­treme­ly good lawyer. He pos­sessed very ster­ling qual­i­ties and he was al­so an ex­treme­ly good hu­man be­ing.”

Shocked and dazed yes­ter­day, he con­tin­ued, “He gave of him­self to a num­ber of per­sons both in and out of law. I can say the pro­fes­sion has suf­fered a tremen­dous loss with the death of Mr Hec­tor. He lived his life as an ex­am­ple for oth­ers and it was ev­i­dent in how he com­mu­ni­cat­ed with oth­ers.”

Guardian Me­dia learned that Hec­tor had been ap­point­ed the spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor in a mat­ter due to be­gin short­ly, in­volv­ing a high-pro­file sus­pect be­lieved to be a Port-of-Spain gang leader.

An­oth­er mem­ber of the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty, who re­quest­ed not to be named, said “There is a clear in­di­ca­tion that it is not a rob­bery and that they came for him specif­i­cal­ly.

“While it is cir­cum­stan­tial, one can say that from what we know so far...this was a mes­sage be­ing sent.”

This at­tor­ney, along with two oth­ers, won­dered about the cir­cum­stances fur­ther, ask­ing, “Why kill him when an­oth­er pros­e­cu­tor would sim­ply be ap­point­ed in his place?”

They spec­u­lat­ed that the killing was meant to scare per­sons away in­stead, and al­so dis­missed the mo­tive of rob­bery, as they said noth­ing had been tak­en from Hec­tor when he was shot.