Jensen La Vende

British na­tion­al Adri­an St John was shot dead on Sun­day night af­ter he was robbed by two armed ban­dits in Mt D'Or.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, around 8.30 pm, 22-year-old St John was dri­ving a Nis­san AD wag­on along Mt D'Or Road when he stopped to pick up the daugh­ter of his 50-year-old fe­male pas­sen­ger.

As the woman en­tered the ve­hi­cle two men ap­proached and held up St John. Af­ter rob­bing him the men or­dered him to dri­ve off. As he was do­ing so, one of the gun­men on the road­side fired, hit­ting the as­pir­ing crick­eter in the head, po­lice said.

One of the women steered the ve­hi­cle to the East­ern Main Road and then stopped a pass­ing po­lice ve­hi­cle who trans­port­ed St John to the near­by Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, where he died short­ly af­ter. Yes­ter­day, a 24-year-old sus­pect was held at Mount Hope for the mur­der.

Speak­ing with the me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, St John's cousin, Le­an­dra Alexan­der, said St John came to T&T for Car­ni­val and en­joyed his vis­it so much he want­ed to stay in the coun­try.

She said af­ter rel­a­tives begged his re­luc­tant fa­ther, St John was al­lowed to re­main in the coun­try a bit longer and was sched­uled to re­turn to the UK next Tues­day. She said St John lived in La Brea with rel­a­tives.

"Adri­an was very cool and jol­ly. He was a dar­ling. He was nev­er rude, nev­er dis­re­spect­ful, he was just a cool and qui­et child," Alexan­der said.

Oth­er rel­a­tives said St John was born in Eng­land, spent the first sev­en years in T&T, and was a crick­eter in Eng­land. They added that St John was al­ready tak­ing steps to be­come a cit­i­zen of this coun­try in pur­suit of his plans to play one day for the West In­dies.

At­tempts to reach the British High Com­mis­sion yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.

So far this year, 135 peo­ple have been mur­dered, 30 more than for the same pe­ri­od last year.