Jensen La Vende

Be­fore snuff­ing his life out, the killer of a Mal­oney man grant­ed him one last mer­ci­ful act by al­low­ing him to put down his 13-month-old son.

Po­lice said the child stood cry­ing af­ter hear­ing the shots that end­ed Daniel Voisin's life and was picked up by neigh­bours who af­ter hear­ing what they pre­sumed were fire­crack­ers heard the child scream­ing and saw him stand­ing near his slain fa­ther.

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed Build­ing 19, Mal­oney Gar­dens, yes­ter­day, the child, Daniel Voisin Ju­nior, was in the arms of his grand­moth­er, Kathy-Ann Mor­ris-Not­ting­ham, smil­ing, play­ing and sip­ping on or­ange juice.

Po­lice said around 7 am they re­spond­ed to a re­port of a shoot­ing in the area and when they ar­rived found Voisin mur­dered just out­side his apart­ment lo­cat­ed on the first floor.

Po­lice said Voisin, 21, an as­pir­ing sol­dier fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of his fa­ther, was killed af­ter a man from the area threat­ened him and a group of oth­er men last Thurs­day for an in­ci­dent that took place pre­vi­ous­ly.

Po­lice said the sus­pect­ed killer at­tacked Voisin yes­ter­day be­cause he knew he was a soft tar­get. Voisin, who po­lice ad­mit­ted was not in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, was with a group of men lim­ing when two of the men pulled guns for the rel­a­tives of the sus­pect­ed killer.

Last Fri­day, po­lice con­duct­ed a six-hour lock­down of the Mal­oney area and ar­rest­ed eight peo­ple.One of them was said to be a known gang­ster who lived in the same area with Voisin and who po­lice sus­pect­ed is the "pro­tec­tor" for the area against war­ring neigh­bours.

With the man in cus­tody the killer took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tack Voisin who was con­duct­ing his morn­ing rit­u­al of walk­ing his son be­fore he left for work.

The bad blood be­tween the killer and Voisin be­gan in Au­gust, po­lice said, as the shoot­er sus­pect­ed that Voisin wit­nessed the killing of fel­low res­i­dent, Ak­ile Gar­cia, 26, who died at hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing shot on Au­gust 15. Po­lice be­lieve Voisin was first tar­get­ed be­cause he was not one to be known to have a gun and most like­ly un­able to de­fend him­self.

Speak­ing with the me­dia yes­ter­day Voisin's moth­er, Gise­le Mo­hammed, said her son was await­ing a court mat­ter to be dis­missed so that he would be ac­cept­ed in­to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment.

She added that her son was in­volved in a fight near­ly two years ago and the mat­ter was be­fore the court. She said the vic­tim did not want to pur­sue the mat­ter and they were just await­ing the of­fi­cial dis­missal so he could move on. Out­side of that her son has a clean record and was a mem­ber of the Mal­oney Pac­ers in the Hoop of Life bas­ket­ball tour­na­ment.

Voisin's coach, Christo­pher Jack­son Charles, who vis­it­ed the scene al­so con­firmed that he was a bas­ket­ball play­er who put prac­tice and play­ing on pause af­ter the birth of his son.

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