Derek Achong

Three peo­ple, among them the wife of de­ceased re­put­ed gang leader Mark Guer­ra, were mur­dered in sep­a­rate shoot­ings in Arou­ca, Laven­tille and Port-of-Spain be­tween Fri­day night and yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.The three killings raised the mur­der toll for the year to 131.

Arou­ca man killed

In the first in­ci­dent, around 10.20 pm on Fri­day night, 27-year-old Rick­el Dun­can of Arou­ca, was lim­ing with friends at Perkins Street when the group was ap­proached by a gun­man. With­out warn­ing, the gun­man drew a firearm and be­gan shoot­ing at Dun­can. Af­ter hit­ting Dun­can sev­er­al times in the head and chest, the gun­man ran off. Dun­can was rushed to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was pro­nounced dead.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Dun­can was well known to po­lice and was a sus­pect­ed drug deal­er. Po­lice said he was born in An­tigua and came to Trinidad af­ter he was de­port­ed from the US a cou­ple of years ago. He was the fa­ther of a four-month-old girl.ASP Green­wich and Arou­ca Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Mean­while, around 2 pm yes­ter­day, 38-year-old Bev­er­ly Nurse, of John John, Laven­tille, was shot dead in front of her de­ceased hus­band, Mark Guer­ra's home. Gang leader Guer­ra was mur­dered at his Waller­field farm in March 2003.Po­lice said that Nurse was stand­ing in front of a shop un­der Guer­ra's house, when she was ap­proached by a man pre­tend­ing to be a cus­tomer. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the man drew a firearm and shot Nurse in the head. She died at the scene.

Nurse re­cent­ly sur­vived an at­tempt on her life in which she and a male com­pan­ion were shot at by a gun­man while dri­ving near her home.Po­lice said that on May 2, Nurse and her friend Jo­van Maxwell, of Pel­i­can Ex­ten­sion, Mor­vant, were dri­ving in her Kia Sportage when a man ran in the path of the car. Nurse, who was dri­ving, stopped the ve­hi­cle and the man drew a firearm and shot at them.

Maxwell was hit twice in the face, while Nurse es­caped un­harmed. Maxwell sur­vived that shoot­ing and still re­mained ward­ed in hos­pi­tal up to late yes­ter­day.Se­nior po­lice sources said that reprisal killings are ex­pect­ed to fol­low Nurse's mur­der as she was an ac­quain­tance of sev­er­al gang lead­ers in Laven­tille. In re­sponse, joint po­lice and army pa­trols are ex­pect­ed to be in­creased in the next cou­ple of days, sources said.

Two teens gunned down in East Dry Riv­er

Less than 30 min­utes af­ter Nurse was killed, two teenagers were shot at East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain.Po­lice said that Nigel Hy­po­lite, 19, and Jesse Chris, 17, were sal­vaging scrap iron near their homes in Clifton Hill Cir­cu­lar Road when they were ap­proached by two masked gun­men. The men re­port­ed­ly shot the teens sev­er­al times be­fore run­ning away.

Hy­po­lite was pro­nounced dead at the scene, while his friend was rushed to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Chris was sched­uled to un­der­go emer­gency surgery yes­ter­day evening and was said to be in crit­i­cal con­di­tion. Homi­cide de­tec­tives could not con­firm whether both shoot­ings were con­nect­ed but be­lieve that both were gang-re­lat­ed.ASP Ajith Per­sad, In­sp Mervyn Ed­wards and Cpl Paul of the Port-of-Spain CID are prob­ing both mur­ders.