Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Mys­tery sur­rounds the death of a Rio Claro money­len­der who was gunned down out­side his home by two men af­ter a fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion went sour on Mon­day night. Po­lice said Mc­Nish Lum Young, 33, of Lib­ertville Road, Rio Claro, died af­ter be­ing shot five times. Four of the bul­lets pierced his chest and right fore­arm while the fifth en­tered the back of his neck.

Lum Young, who ran a gym be­hind his home, died in­stant­ly in the arms of his 25-year-old wife Sad­i­ca. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they be­lieved Lum Young knew his killers and had an undis­closed sum of cash at the time of his death. In a state­ment, Sad­i­ca told po­lice that she went to lock up their gym around 8.20 pm, and left Lum Young watch­ing tele­vi­sion. Min­utes lat­er, she heard loud ex­plo­sions.

At first Sad­i­ca said she did not re­alise the ex­plo­sions were gun­shots. How­ev­er, when she walked to the front of the house, she saw the doors open and her hus­band ly­ing out­side in a pool of blood. Lum Young was se­mi-con­scious and there was trail of blood lead­ing from the gate to the front door, giv­ing the im­pres­sion that he tried to run when the first gun­shots were fired.

His cousin Pretesh Doolarchan said the fam­i­ly was baf­fled about the mo­tive for the crime. "We don't know who will do this, but we think it was peo­ple he knew," Doolarchan said. "When Sad­i­ca found him, he was clutch­ing mon­ey. "Some of the bills were scat­tered around him...The po­lice count­ed up $2,700."

He said Lum Young was con­duct­ing a fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion when he was shot. Doolarchan added that Lum Young loved his four-year-old daugh­ter Sier­ra and want­ed to get out of the money­lend­ing busi­ness. He said Lum Young was al­so plan­ning a 50th birth­day par­ty for Doolarchan's moth­er.

Say­ing the crime rate was ridicu­lous, Doolarchan added that more was need­ed to be done to pro­tect cit­i­zens. Rel­a­tives at the scene said Lum Young was re­lat­ed by mar­riage to the new­ly-ap­point­ed chair­man of Caribbean Air­lines, Ra­bindra Moo­nan.

How­ev­er, Moo­nan said yes­ter­day that he did not know Lum Young. Re­ports al­so stat­ed that Lum Young's rel­a­tive Lar­ry Mungals­ingh was gunned down at Ban­doo Trace Ex­ten­sion, Clax­ton Bay, on No­vem­ber 22, 2008. An au­top­sy has been sched­uled to be done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre at St James on Lum Young's body.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they had de­scrip­tions of two sus­pects who were seen run­ning away. Cpl Ma­haraj of the South­ern Di­vi­sion Homi­cide Bu­reau is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.