A 22-year-old Bel­mont man who was re­leased from prison in No­vem­ber last year was killed in St James on Mon­day night.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, they re­spond­ed to a shoot­ing at Up­per Dun­don­ald Hill around 7 pm and found Ak­il Ro­main.

Rel­a­tives of Ro­main who spoke with the me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James yes­ter­day, said he was re­leased from prison with an in­ten­tion of nev­er re­turn­ing and im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan search­ing for a job. They said he had con­fid­ed in his pas­tor that he want­ed to change his life around.

Af­ter close to two months hunt­ing for a job, Ro­main, who had been in jail for gun pos­ses­sion was fi­nal­ly em­ployed as a labour­er at Fred­dies Bak­ery, in St James. Rel­a­tives said Ro­main had made an ap­point­ment for a "bush bath" and on re­turn­ing from that he was killed.

In an un­re­lat­ed killing, an Ari­ma man was mur­dered out­side his home ear­ly yes­ter­day.

Floyd Williams Jr, 34, had been ar­rest­ed in the past for pos­ses­sion of nar­cotics, po­lice said.

His fa­ther, Floyd Williams Snr, said his son had no en­e­mies as far as he was aware and was a lov­ing son.

Williams Snr, who spoke with the me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre said his son, his sec­ond child and first boy, was the fa­ther of one. He said his son was a skilled me­chan­ic.

Po­lice said around 3.30 am yes­ter­day two gun­shots were heard fol­lowed by a loud scream and on check­ing, Williams' body was found out­side his Cal­vary Hill home. Williams was the fa­ther of a nine-year-old girl.

So far, 26 peo­ple have been killed for the year one less than the com­pa­ra­ble toll for last year.