Joan Cheryl Cooper received death threats over a year ago following an ongoing land dispute and when she was finally gunned down in Marabella today, her relatives still could not believe the threat had materialized.
"How could this happen? I thought it would end with a cuss out but look! She dead now," Cooper's brother Derrick Aberdeen wept as he gazed at Cooper's body lying slumped in the front seat of a white Nissan Sentra at Grenada Terrace, Harmony Hall, Marabella.
The killing occurred around 6:30 am, a day before Cooper, 53, was expected to appear at the San Fernando High Court to testify in the land dispute matter. Cooper's boyfriend Carl Edmund, who worked as a landscaper also received a single gunshot wound to the left side of the chest and was listed in stable condition at the San Fernando General Hospital.
Police said Cooper and Edmund had just driven out of their driveway when a man dressed in white walked up to their car and fired at point blank range.
The shooter then ran off to a nearby street, jumped in a waiting car and drove off. The man was seen fidgeting with an item in his car before confronting the couple with bullets. Cooper was shot in the abdomen and died within minutes.