Kevon Felmine

There will be no Christ­mas for two Cou­va fam­i­lies af­ter a 23-year-old woman was bru­tal­ly beat­en to death and a 39-year-old fa­ther shot dead while dri­ving near the Ch­agua­nas Ceme­tery on Wednes­day night.Re­ports are that se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Sal­isha Lang­too, of Jen­nifer Street, Lisas Gar­dens, was blud­geoned with a car jack and fa­ther of one Clif­ford George, of Car­oli­na Vil­lage, was shot four times in the chest af­ter they were am­bushed out­side the ceme­tery.

Two oth­er oc­cu­pants of the car, 31-year-old Kwe­si Brooks and a woman iden­ti­fied on­ly as Car­lene, were shot and beat­en. They were both ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal up to last evening.Three men sus­pect­ed of com­mit­ting the heinous acts were held yes­ter­day morn­ing. They were caught rob­bing a su­per­mar­ket in Ch­agua­nas.The quar­tet was trav­el­ling along the Pe­ters­field Main Road, St Thomas Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas, around 6.30 pm in a red Nis­san Almera dri­ven by George.

As they reached the ceme­tery, gun­men opened fire on the car, which crashed in­to a tomb­stone. Wit­ness­es said the vic­tims tried to run from the car af­ter the ini­tial at­tack, but the gun­men ran to­wards it and shot and beat their vic­tims.Po­lice led by ACP Wayne Dick, Snr Supt John Daniel, Supt John­ny Abra­ham, In­sp Williams and Sgt Toolaram found George slumped in the dri­ver's seat while Lang­too was ly­ing face down at the side of the car.

Car­lene was found ly­ing on the back seat suf­fer­ing from in­juries to the left side of her jaw, and Brooks was in the drain with in­juries to his head.All four vic­tims were tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where George and Lang­too died.Brooks and Car­lene were then tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ence Com­plex in Mt Hope, but the lat­ter was lat­er trans­ferred to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for emer­gency trau­ma treat­ment.

An au­top­sy by foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr Valery Alexan­drov at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James yes­ter­day showed Lang­too was struck five times on the head with the car jack, caus­ing skull frac­tures and brain dam­age.George was shot four times. Bul­lets pierced his aor­ta and lungs. Alexan­drov said it was dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine what types of bul­lets were used as they were un­jack­et­ed.When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed George's home yes­ter­day, his fam­i­ly was dis­traught.

His aunt, Mol­ly Samuel, said the death was es­pe­cial­ly trag­ic, since they were look­ing for­ward to spend­ing Christ­mas to­geth­er as a fam­i­ly. She said George and his eight-year-old son, Omari, were very close and he was work­ing as PH taxi dri­ver to buy Christ­mas gifts.Samuel was baf­fled at the killing, say­ing her nephew had no en­e­mies.She said George was a part-time elec­tri­cal tech­ni­cian at D2F Tech­ni­cal at Point Lisas, Cou­va, but had not been em­ployed for the past few weeks and de­cid­ed to work a friend's car for hire.

When the Guardian news team vis­it­ed Lang­too's home, neigh­bours said her fam­i­ly had gone to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre. They de­scribed her as a friend­ly and re­spectable woman.The killings took the toll for the year to 373.