The coun­try’s mur­der count is inch­ing clos­er to the 500 mark.

Just shy of the fig­ure by three, it stood at 497 up to press time yes­ter­day evening.

Late on Thurs­day, homi­cide of­fi­cers and crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors were at a scene in Cunu­pia where the body of an uniden­ti­fied woman was found near a sweet pota­to gar­den.

Po­lice said they re­ceived an anony­mous call at about 2.15 pm about the woman’s body.

Po­lice of­fi­cers went to the lo­ca­tion where they found the body in some bush­es about 20 feet off from Ram­char­i­tar Trace.

Po­lice said the woman’s body bore mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds to the face and up­per body.

The woman’s hands were bound and her mouth gagged.

Po­lice said the uniden­ti­fied woman is fair in com­plex­ion, about five feet five inch­es tall and medi­um built. She was clad in a pink jer­sey and a pair of pink pants and was bare­foot­ed with a tat­too of a rosary around the left an­kle.

The woman’s mur­der came hours af­ter two peo­ple were killed in a shoot­ing in­ci­dent in Diego Mar­tin on Wednes­day night.

Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors said Lar­ry Joseph, 57, one of the vic­tims, who was shot at Up­per Covi­gne Road in Diego Mar­tin, had just left home to buy a loaf of bread that was meant for din­ner.

Joseph was pass­ing through a short-cut to his home at Ceme­tery Street.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 7.35 pm gun­men opened fire us­ing se­mi-au­to­mat­ic weapons. Joseph and an­oth­er man, Ran­dell “Ken­ny” Fletch­er, a PH dri­ver from Up­per Covi­gne Road, died on the scene.

A third man, Joseph Daniel, 21, was shot in the left arm and sub­se­quent­ly treat­ed at the St James Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day Joseph’s rel­a­tives said he had left home to buy bread as his wife was cook­ing stew chick­en.

“And the thing is he wasn’t a big limer ei­ther. It hurt when I saw they say­ing he was lim­ing there. Where that track is, is close to our home. Giv­en we on Ceme­tery Street, it’s a short cut to reach to Covi­gne Road, “ Joseph’s daugh­ter said.

“My moth­er was stew­ing chick­en and he just leave the home to get some bread, and this is what hap­pen. That was it. He step out he yard and that was it. It was 30 sec­onds if so much and then we heard the shots. They im­me­di­ate­ly start call­ing for him. They didn’t know that would be his last,” she added as she broke down in tears.

Joseph was a ven­dor at the Port of Port-of-Spain and was pop­u­lar for ply­ing his trade at po­lice sta­tions and mar­ket places.

He was de­scribed as “a lov­ing fa­ther to the com­mu­ni­ty.

“He was an old­er mem­ber in the com­mu­ni­ty and talk to every­one. We see every­one grow up. But now these chil­dren play­ing the fool and it have all this war in the com­mu­ni­ty and it’s some­thing hard to take in. The chil­dren who war­ring, their par­ents are cool with one an­oth­er. So this break­ing my heart. It’s not mak­ing sense to be fight­ing and killing each oth­er for pet­ty is­sues. You’re fight­ing for land that you don’t own. For a turf? Why? You can’t take these things af­ter life, “ the daugh­ter added.

Guardian Me­dia was told by a mem­ber of Fletch­er’s fam­i­ly that he went to pur­chase mar­i­jua­na when the gun­men at­tacked. How­ev­er, they said they strong­ly be­lieve that the gun­men were look­ing for some­one else and when they did not see the tar­get they opened fire in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly.

Po­lice and res­i­dents in the area be­lieve that since the re­lease of nine peo­ple from prison re­cent­ly crime has es­ca­lat­ed in the Covi­gne Road, Diego Mar­tin area.