Kevon Felmine

Po­lice in south Trinidad were kept busy on Sun­day as four men were killed in two sep­a­rate in­ci­dents, with three vic­tims be­ing slain in one of the at­tacks, tak­ing the mur­der toll for the year to 122.In one of the in­ci­dents, La Ro­maine broth­ers Randy and Mau­rice Lesh­more, 21 and 26, and their broth­er-in-law Kwasi Vin­cent, 47, were shot dead by three gun­men who am­bushed them dur­ing a lime.Po­lice said as Randy and Kwasi lay on the cold con­crete at the fam­i­ly's Pond Street home, they hugged each oth­er be­fore the gun­men shot them sev­er­al times in their heads and backs. Mau­rice tried to es­cape but one of the gun­men chased him through a track and shot him in the back.

On­ly 27-year-old Kevin Williams man­aged to es­cape al­though he was shot in the thigh. He was ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day.The men were all lim­ing at an apart­ment at the back of Nana's par­lour when the gun­men broke through a gal­vanise fence in the back­yard. They or­dered an 18-year-old neigh­bour to kneel on the ground be­fore they am­bushed the men, who were sit­ting in the yard.Po­lice be­lieve the men or­dered the broth­ers to lie on the ground and shot them, while an­oth­er gun­man fired shots at Vin­cent and Williams.

Po­lice, led by ASP Williams, In­sp Ga­jad­har and Sgt Dhilpaul, found more than eight spent shells at the scene.Bare­ly able to speak at the crime scene, Mau­rice's com­mon-law-wife, Sarah Ar­joon, was in­con­solable af­ter ar­riv­ing ear­li­er to find her rel­a­tives on the ground gasp­ing for breath. Ar­joon, who is al­so Vin­cent's sis­ter, lost her fa­ther, Har­ry Ar­joon, in a car ac­ci­dent on Feb­ru­ary 3.

With tears stream­ing down her cheeks, she said Mau­rice, who some­times stayed at his fa­ther's home, called her short­ly af­ter 9 pm and said he was com­ing to meet her but she told him it was too late and he should stay with rel­a­tives."About ten min­utes af­ter, my nephew came and asked me if I heard the gun­shots. I said 'shut your mouth, that is not our busi­ness,'" she re­called.

"I was home get­ting ready to sleep and it was on­ly when my cousin start­ed to talk, say­ing that three men came through the gal­vanise and shot Kwasi, it was then I knew what had hap­pened.

"A lit­tle while af­ter they called me and said call Wendy (Lesh­more's sis­ter) be­cause Dil­lon got shot too."Dil­lon and Kwasi were breath­ing when I reached there. They couldn't talk. They couldn't move and they were ly­ing face down on the ground breath­ing hard. They could not have sur­vived be­cause there was so much blood. Ju­nior was al­ready dead."

For Wendy Lesh­more, her broth­ers' deaths came a few years af­ter los­ing her moth­er An­gela Lesh­more to ill­ness."What will I do now? My moth­er gone, my broth­ers gone. Is just me alone now," Wendy said.A 31-year-old rel­a­tive said some peo­ple have la­belled the area as a drug block but he said no one knows the rea­son for the killing.Speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, he said: "When we came out­side, we saw those two fel­las ly­ing down on the ground, hug­ging up one an­oth­er."I watched them take their last breath, I saw the last piece of life come out of them. They died with their eyes open, and the way one of them died, I feel like they knew one of the killers be­cause his eyes opened up re­al big in his head. It was like he was in shock."The rel­a­tive said sev­er­al calls were made for an am­bu­lance but it took more than an hour to ar­rive.He said even when po­lice came Vin­cent was still alive and he be­lieved if the am­bu­lance had come ear­li­er there could have been few­er deaths.