Joan Cheryl Coop­er re­ceived death threats over a year ago, fol­low­ing an on­go­ing land dis­pute. When she was fi­nal­ly­gunned down in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day, her rel­a­tives still could not be­lieve the threat had ma­te­ri­alised.

"How could this hap­pen? I thoughtit would end with a cuss out but look! Shedead now," Coop­er's broth­er, Der­rick Ab­erdeen, wept as he gazed at Coop­er's body 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 in the San Fer­nan­do High Court to tes­ti­fy in the land dis­pute case.Coop­er's boyfriend Carl Ed­mund, who worked as a land­scap­er, was al­so shot in the left side of thech­est and was list­ed in sta­ble con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal last night.

Po­lice said Coop­er and Ed­mund had just come out their dri­ve­way when a man dressed in white walked up to their car and fired. The shoot­er then ran to a near­by street, jumped in a wait­ing­car and drove off. The man was seen fid­get­ing with an item in his car­be­fore am­bush­ing the cou­ple. Coop­er was shot in the ab­domen and died with­in min­utes.

Ab­erdeen said he last spoke to Coop­er about a month ago. He said she had lodged a re­port at the Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tion af­ter the threats were made and po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ed it and lat­er charged the of­fend­er.

De­scrib­ing Coop­er as a kind-heart­ed and lov­ing moth­er, Ab­erdeen said she lived for some­time at Bayshore, Mara­bel­la, but moved out about five years ago to live with Ed­mund. Ab­erdeen said Coop­er worked with CEPEP and was de­vot­ed to her five chil­dren–Si­mon, Shel­don, Nat­ty, Shiv­aughn and Ke­sha.

"We grew up with love. We had dif­fer­ent fa­thers but all we ever knew was love," Ab­erdeen said.

He ex­plained that it was this kind-heart­ed­ness that led to the land dis­pute. He said some­time ago a rel­a­tive's home was burnt down and ar­son was sus­pect­ed but no one was ever ar­rest­ed.

Po­lice said yes­ter­day that they were look­ing for CCTV footage to help them lo­cate the killer. Sev­er­al of Coop­er's fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing her daugh­ter Shiv­aughn Mof­fat, said she planned to go to court as usu­al to­day.

"The lawyer has to know what hap­pened. My moth­er did not de­serve this. She was a good woman," Mof­fat wept.

"I was not ex­pect­ing her life to be in dan­ger. I was ex­pect­ing some­thing, but not this."

An au­top­sy is sched­uled to be done on Coop­er's body to­day.Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on her killing can con­tact CrimeStop­pers at 800-TIPS or call the San Fer­nan­do Homi­cide Bu­reau.