Derek Achong

A for­mer mur­der ac­cused was among four men who were shot dead in Diego Mar­tin and Ari­ma yes­ter­day morn­ing, with­in hours of each oth­er. Those killed were Hen­ry Thomas, 25, of Farm Road, Diego Mar­tin, Ri­car­do Mar­shall, 27, Anil Har­ry, 32, and Nigel Jack, 35, all of Si­mon Road, Cara­po Vil­lage, Ari­ma. The mur­der toll stood at 227 for the year up to late yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. In the first in­ci­dent, around 2.30 am, Thomas was walk­ing near his home when res­i­dents heard sev­er­al gun­shots. When they re­spond­ed they found Thomas ly­ing on the road with gun­shot wounds. He died of his in­juries.Homi­cide de­tec­tives have not de­ter­mined a clear mo­tive for his killing but not­ed he was not in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Al­most six hours lat­er, res­i­dents of Cara­po Vil­lage, were awak­ened by gun­shots. Po­lice said around 8.50 am, Har­ry and Jack were at Mar­shall's home lim­ing. Af­ter a short con­ver­sa­tion, eye­wit­ness­es said, two vis­i­tors drew guns and be­gan shoot­ing at the three friends. The two gun­men then ran away. Mar­shall was tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he died. Har­ry and Jack were pro­nounced dead on the scene by a Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer (DMO). Mar­shall, the fa­ther of one, was charged in Sep­tem­ber 2009 with the mur­der of fel­low Cara­po Vil­lage res­i­dent Kevin Guy, whose bul­let-rid­dled body was found in a drain near his home on Au­gust 13, 2009. Mar­shall was freed of the charge in March 2010, af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard told the Ari­ma First Mag­is­trate's Court there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence against him.

Af­ter the mur­der charge was dropped, Mar­shall filed le­gal ac­tion against the State for wrong­ful ar­rest and false im­pris­on­ment. The law­suit is still pend­ing. In­ves­ti­ga­tors of yes­ter­day's triple mur­der said all three men were known to them and have la­belled the in­ci­dent as gang-re­lat­ed. De­tec­tives of the Re­gion Two Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions were said to be pur­su­ing sev­er­al leads in an ef­fort to solve the triple killing. No ar­rests were made up to late yes­ter­day evening. Su­per­in­ten­dent Garth Nel­son, In­spec­tor Ramnaresh Seecha­ran and Sgt Bas­deo Sinanan of the North­ern Di­vi­sion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.