An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A St James man was killed while his friend was wound­ed dur­ing a shoot­ing on Wednes­day night.

The de­ceased was iden­ti­fied as Mark An­tho­ny El­lis, 28, of Dibe Road, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James.

El­lis’ 20-year-old friend from De Fri­etas Street, St James, was al­so left nurs­ing a gun­shot wound to the right low­er ab­domen and re­mained in sta­ble con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day.

Of­fi­cers on pa­trol around 10.55 pm on Wednes­day were no­ti­fied that gun­shots had been heard com­ing from Al­fred Richards Street, St James. Up­on check­ing, they found El­lis’ body ly­ing in a track lead­ing off De Fre­itas Road.

El­lis was de­clared dead at the scene, while his friend was treat­ed at the St James In­fir­mary be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Re­ports in­di­cate the duo had been lim­ing un­der a shed near to Al­fred Richards Street, when a sil­ver Nis­san Almera stopped and two armed men got out and start­ed shoot­ing at them.

As both men took off run­ning to­wards De Fre­itas Street, El­lis was shot sev­er­al times and fell to the ground, where he died.

Four spent 9mm shell cas­ings were re­cov­ered at the scene.

Mean­while, in an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to a killing on Tues­day, in which Kendell Fran­cis was shot dead at a house at Hun­dred Acre, Waller­field.

The 43-year-old, of Moo­sai Road, Diego Mar­tin, was shot in the head sev­er­al times.

Of­fi­cers on pa­trol in Cu­mu­to were no­ti­fied that gun­shots had been heard com­ing from the small house at 11.45 pm. They lat­er found Fran­cis ly­ing face down in a pool of blood. They al­so found Fran­cis’ red Nis­san Syl­phy parked on the grav­el road, with the house light on and the right rear door open. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten 5.56mm spent shell cas­ings were re­cov­ered at the scene.

Fran­cis’ car was lat­er towed to the Spe­cial Ev­i­dence Re­cov­ery Unit (SERU) in Cu­mu­to.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, the body of a man dis­cov­ered ly­ing along the Guayagua­yare Road, Ma­yaro, near Grand La­goon Vil­lage around 5.30 am on Wednes­day, was yet to be iden­ti­fied up to yes­ter­day.

Of­fi­cers on pa­trol came across the body of the east-In­di­an man on the west­ern side of the road­way. He was wear­ing a black short pants and red and black box­ers. The vic­tim had been shot mul­ti­ple times about the body.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 feet away along a dirt track, of­fi­cers found a blue and white cloth soaked in blood.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, of­fi­cers lat­er went to Mis­chi­er Street, St Ann’s Vil­lage, Ma­yaro, where they found a blood trail and oth­er items of cloth­ing along with a pair of sneak­ers be­lieved to be­long to the dead man.