Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Rio Claro moth­er and free­lance jour­nal­ist Kellyann Lemessy was am­bushed and fa­tal­ly shot in her car as she ar­rived home just af­ter noon yes­ter­day.

Po­lice con­firmed that her tod­dler and nine-year-old daugh­ter were in the ve­hi­cle at the time of the at­tack but were not in­jured.

Lemessy, 38, was shot as she pulled in­to the dri­ve­way of her rental apart­ment along the Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road, near Laz­zari Road, short­ly af­ter mid­day. She had not yet switched off her Maz­da 3 ve­hi­cle when two masked gun­men opened fire.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve her ba­by, who is al­most two years old, was on her lap at the time. Lemessy re­port­ed­ly shield­ed the child from the gun­fire. She was shot mul­ti­ple times to the head and body and was pro­nounced dead at the scene.

Bul­let holes were vis­i­ble in the front pas­sen­ger-side and dri­ver-side win­dows of the ve­hi­cle.

A moth­er of three, Lemessy was a free­lance cor­re­spon­dent with Guardian Me­dia, cov­er­ing the Ma­yaro and Rio Claro ar­eas.

Dis­traught rel­a­tives, in­clud­ing her moth­er and sib­lings, gath­ered at the scene as homi­cide de­tec­tives, crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors and oth­er of­fi­cers car­ried out in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Their an­guished cries echoed through the com­mu­ni­ty as some called out her name. “Why? Why?” one rel­a­tive cried.

This is the sec­ond tragedy to strike the fam­i­ly in less than a year. In June 2025, Lemessy’s sis­ter, Cassieann, was gunned down in her car a short dis­tance from her home on Church Street, Ma­yaro. A man has since been charged in con­nec­tion with that mur­der.

Lemessy and an­oth­er sis­ter had been charged with caus­ing griev­ous bod­i­ly harm to their broth­er last year, af­ter they were ac­cused of throw­ing boil­ing wa­ter on him. Both women were grant­ed $200,000 bail.

Po­lice lat­er re­cov­ered a stolen white wag­on be­lieved to have been used as the get­away ve­hi­cle. It was found aban­doned a short dis­tance from the mur­der scene. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the ve­hi­cle was re­port­ed stolen dur­ing a home in­va­sion in Pe­nal on Jan­u­ary 13.

Re­act­ing to the killing, Ma­yaro–Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er de­scribed Lemessy’s death as a sig­nif­i­cant loss to the com­mu­ni­ty. Co­zi­er, who is al­so a pas­tor, said he had bap­tised her and not­ed that they shared a rou­tine of ex­chang­ing prayer mes­sages each morn­ing.

“In my day-to-day ac­tiv­i­ties she would al­ways com­mu­ni­cate with me to dis­cuss news, events and ac­tiv­i­ties,” he said.

He de­scribed her as en­thu­si­as­tic about jour­nal­ism and said she per­formed her work “dili­gent­ly, fair­ly, ac­cu­rate­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.”

“She was al­ways ac­ces­si­ble and will­ing to re­spond pos­i­tive­ly,” Co­zi­er added. “It is a big loss to the com­mu­ni­ty in terms of get­ting news out, and on a per­son­al lev­el, I am deeply sad­dened.”

Rio Claro South/Cat­shill coun­cil­lor David Law al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, re­call­ing that Lemessy had in­ter­viewed him over the years on both na­tion­al and com­mu­ni­ty is­sues.

“She was vig­i­lant, al­ways on the ball and nev­er want­ed to miss any­thing,” Law said, adding that he had spo­ken with her less than a week ago. He not­ed that she had con­fid­ed in him dur­ing a “tough” pe­ri­od last year.

“It was re­al­ly a shock when I heard about it ear­li­er this af­ter­noon,” he said.

Up to late last evening, of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion II were con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions as they sought to de­ter­mine a mo­tive for the killing.