Shas­tri Boodan

& Rhon­dor Dowlat

To­ba­go East MP Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy has ex­pressed sor­row fol­low­ing the mur­der of Zachary Lin­dow.

The 21-year-old was gunned down dur­ing a rob­bery while de­liv­er­ing goods to a mi­ni-mart near Ba­co­let Bay Beach. He would have cel­e­brat­ed his 22nd birth­day to­mor­row (Box­ing Day).

Po­lice said at 6.30 pm Mon­day, Lin­dow, a res­i­dent of Pem­broke, and his co-work­er, em­ployed with a dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny from Golds­bor­ough, went to the mi­ni-mart to drop off goods. The duo was ap­proached by two masked gun­men who opened fire on them as they de­mand­ed mon­ey.

Lin­dow died on the spot, while the co-work­er was in­jured.

As news of the mur­der spread, Lin­dow’s moth­er Ab­bi Bai­ley ar­rived at the scene, where she open­ly cried for her son.

“They kill Za­ky, they kill meh son, meh first­born.”

Lin­dow’s aunt, Na­dine James, de­scribed him as a lov­ing, qui­et and car­ing per­son.

James said her fam­i­ly has suf­fered two loss­es in re­cent times. She said her son’s fa­ther, Alvin Daniel, was mur­dered three months ago, four days af­ter her step­moth­er died.

“Now to face this, it’s re­al­ly, re­al­ly hard for us.”

MP Web­ster-Roy was al­so griev­ing Lin­dow’s killing, which she de­scribed as a “sense­less act.” She said he was the son of a rel­a­tive.

“I am deeply hurt and dis­ap­point­ed by the trag­ic loss of one of our young, promis­ing con­stituents,” Web­ster-Roy said.

“Zachary was ded­i­cat­ed to earn­ing a liv­ing the right way. This sense­less act has robbed our com­mu­ni­ty of a bright light.”

The MP is­sued a heart­felt plea to those in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, urg­ing them to turn their lives around.

“There is dig­ni­ty and ful­fil­ment in an hon­est day’s work. No gain from crime can ever com­pare to the val­ue of a clean con­science and a peace­ful life,” she said.

She al­so called on law en­force­ment to act de­ci­sive­ly in ar­rest­ing Lin­dow’s killers.

“Zachary’s life was cut short too soon, but we owe it to him and his fam­i­ly to pur­sue jus­tice. May his soul rest in eter­nal peace.”

Mean­while, Se­nior Supt Earl Elie said he was trou­bled that mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry were al­low­ing crim­i­nals back on­to the streets af­ter they com­mit­ted heinous crimes.

Speak­ing while at the scene of Lin­dow’s mur­der, Elie said, “There was the rob­bery at the car wash at Low­lands, Coop’s Car­wash and the po­lice would have ar­rest­ed and charged one sus­pect. That per­son went to the court, and you know to­day (De­cem­ber 23), the court would have re­leased that per­son on their own bail ... a grue­some rob­bery which the whole na­tion saw on so­cial me­dia, that per­son was re­leased on­to the peo­ple of To­ba­go at a time like this.”