Derek Achong

A 21-year-old man was yes­ter­day shot dead by a friend dur­ing a hunt­ing ex­pe­di­tion in Mara­cas/St Joseph. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports around 1 am, Aaron Fi­garo of First Trace Main­got Road, Tu­na­puna was hunt­ing with three friends in a forest­ed area off Wharf Trace, Mara­cas/St Joseph. In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve that af­ter hik­ing about three miles through the moun­tain­ous ter­rain Fi­garo got in­to an ar­gu­ment with one of his friends. The friend re­port­ed­ly drew an il­le­gal firearm and shot Fi­garo twice in the chest. The trio then fled the scene, leav­ing their wound­ed friend be­hind. Around 9 am yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers of the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion re­ceived an anony­mous tip-off about the in­ci­dent. A par­ty of of­fi­cers led by In­spec­tor Ramnaresh Seecha­ran ini­ti­at­ed a search of the area and af­ter sev­er­al hours the law­men came up­on Fi­garo's life­less body.

Due to the dif­fi­cult ter­rain of­fi­cers sought the as­sis­tance of a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copter to air­lift the body to a more ac­ces­si­ble area. It was tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James where an au­top­sy will be per­formed lat­er to­day. Late yes­ter­day in­ves­ti­ga­tors said the iden­ti­ty of Fi­garo's killer was known to them and an ar­rest was im­mi­nent. The na­tion's mur­der toll for the year, up to yes­ter­day evening was 162. Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion Two Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.