Derek Achong

Five men were mur­dered with­in nine hours of each oth­er in sep­a­rate shoot­ings in Laven­tille, Ari­ma and cen­tral Trinidad be­tween Wednes­day night and Thurs­day morn­ing.

Those killed have been iden­ti­fied as:

• 56-year-old Pan­dalal "Don" Boodram, a fish­er­man of Co-op­er­a­tive Street, Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn

• Ker­ron Atwell, 30, of George Street, Ste Madeleine

• Daniel Bu­dree, of Ste Madeleine

• Akiel Reveil­lac, 25, of Bayleaf Cres­cent, San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma

• Juan­za Jones, 30, of Up­per Church Street, Laven­tille

The mur­der toll for the year so far stood at 280 up to late yes­ter­day. In the first in­ci­dent, around 5.45 pm on Wednes­day, Boodram, the younger broth­er of ex­e­cut­ed drug deal­er Nankissoon Boodram (Dole Chadee), was lim­ing at a bar near his home. A grey Nis­san B14 re­port­ed­ly pulled along­side and the two oc­cu­pants be­gan shoot­ing at him. Boodram was shot sev­er­al times in his tor­so and was pro­nounced dead on the scene. Homi­cide de­tec­tives were yet to es­tab­lish a mo­tive for Boodram's mur­der up to late yes­ter­day. Supt Garth Nel­son, In­sp Ramnaresh Seecha­ran and Sgt Bas­deo Sinanan of the North­ern Di­vi­sion are prob­ing the mur­der. Al­most four hours lat­er, Atwell and Bu­dree's bul­let-rid­dled bod­ies were found by po­lice in a car parked on To­ba­go Av­enue, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas. Po­lice be­lieve that the duo's mur­der was the re­sult of a botched drug trans­ac­tion. The two were re­port­ed­ly seat­ed in the car around 10 pm when they were am­bushed by the group of men they went to meet, po­lice said. In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve they were robbed of cash and jew­el­ry af­ter they were each shot more than five times.

Se­nior Supt De­o­dath Doolarchan, Supt John­ny Abra­ham and In­sp Wayne Lawrence are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Short­ly af­ter mid­night, homi­cide de­tec­tives were sum­moned to yet an­oth­er mur­der scene, this time in Ari­ma. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Akiel Reveil­lac, a bar­tender, was on his way home from work when he stopped at Slinger Fran­cis­co Boule­vard in La Hor­quet­ta,?Ari­ma, to vis­it his four-year-old god­son. Eye­wit­ness­es told po­lice when Reveil­lac got out of his car, he was ap­proached by two armed men who tried to rob him of his gold chain and wal­let. Reveil­lac re­port­ed­ly strug­gled with his at­tack­ers for a cou­ple of min­utes, be­fore one of the men drew a gun and shot him three times in the head. Af­ter shoot­ing him, his at­tack­ers took the gold chain from his neck and the wal­let from his pock­et be­fore es­cap­ing through a track. In an in­ter­view af­ter his au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James, Reveil­lac's moth­er Dawn-Marie de­scribed her son as the "an­gel in her life." She said her son was a hard work­er and a fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed man. "I've been get­ting calls from his friends, who are liv­ing all over the world. Every­one can't be­lieve that this would hap­pen to him," Dawn-Marie said.

In the last in­ci­dent, around 2.45 am on Thurs­day, Juan­za Jones, a painter and trades­man, was shot dead as he stood stand­ing out­side his Laven­tille home. Po­lice said he was at­tend­ing a par­ty at a neigh­bour's house, when he stepped out­side. Par­ty­go­ers heard sev­er­al loud ex­plo­sions and found him ly­ing on the pave­ment with gun­shot wounds to the head. He was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. Sev­er­al of his rel­a­tives, who spoke at the cen­tre yes­ter­day, de­scribed Jones as a car­ing man who was pas­sion­ate about his job. A fe­male rel­a­tive, who wished to re­main un­named, de­nied that he had been in­volved in a life of crime. In­ves­ti­ga­tors yes­ter­day con­firmed that Jones had a clean crim­i­nal record. Jones' mur­der is be­lieved to be a case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty, po­lice said. ASP Ajith Per­sad, In­sp Nes­bitt and Cpls Dono­van Thomp­son and Sir­ju, all of the Port-of-Spain CID, are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.