RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

& DEREK ACHONG

Two peo­ple were killed in sep­a­rate in­cid­nets in east and south Trinidad yes­ter­day.

In the first in­ci­dent, twen­ty min­utes af­ter she left her son ly­ing in a ham­mock in the liv­ing room, Wendy Robin­son heard sev­er­al gun­shots ring­ing off in­side her home.

When she checked, she saw her son Dil­lon Bal­li­ram, 25, ly­ing dead on the floor of his bed­room.

Bal­li­ram, a labour­er em­ployed with the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, died in­stant­ly af­ter be­ing shot sev­er­al times in the head.

Po­lice be­lieve he ran in­to the bed­room when the gun­man en­tered and start­ed fir­ing.

In an in­ter­view with the po­lice, Robin­son, of Boos Set­tle­ment, said she left Bal­li­ram asleep in the ham­mock and went to bed.

Around 11.45 pm, Robin­son said she heard six loud gun­shots and when she raced out to the liv­ing room, the ham­mock was emp­ty.

She then checked Bal­li­ram’s bed­room and saw him ly­ing on his right side. She told po­lice when she called to him he failed to an­swer.

The ter­ri­fied moth­er then re­alised that blood was ooz­ing from Bal­li­ram’s head.

Ball­ri­am scream­ing for help and her neigh­bours came to her as­sis­tance and called the po­lice.

A team of of­fi­cers led by In­sp Si­mon, OPC Gillard and WPC O’Con­nor ar­rived at the house.

Six spent shells fired from a 9mm se­mi-au­to­mat­ic pis­tol were re­cov­ered from the scene of the crime.

Bal­li­ram’s body was viewed by Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Mo­hammed and tak­en to the San­gre Grande mor­tu­ary where an au­top­sy will be done to­day.

Of­fi­cers of the East­ern Re­gion­al Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. 

In the oth­er in­ci­dent, a man from Laven­tille was shot and killed while go­ing to pur­chase a late lunch in Tacarigua yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. 

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, short­ly af­ter 3 pm, the man was about to en­ter Cur­ry Lovers Restau­rant along the East­ern Main Road in Tacarigua, when he was ap­proached by a gun­man, who shot him sev­er­al times be­fore run­ning away. 

The vic­tim was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope but was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. 

He was lat­er iden­ti­fied as Mar­vin Scott, of Pic­ton Road, Laven­tille. 

Homi­cide de­tec­tives had not es­tab­lished a mo­tive for Scott’s mur­der up to late yes­ter­day evening. 

The mur­der count for the year now stands at 291 as com­pared to 368 for the same pe­ri­od last year—an al­most 20 per cent de­crease.

An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be per­formed on Scott’s body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James to­day.