Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Hours af­ter his broth­ers were fa­tal­ly shot in what he be­lieves was an at­tack linked to failed ex­tor­tion at­tempts, Re­nal­do Lewis said he had al­ready for­giv­en the killers and would get his jus­tice from God.

Re­nal­do “Roger” Lewis said he watched help­less­ly as his younger broth­ers, Steven “Ste­vie” Lewis, 41, and Nicholas “Chi­nee” Lewis, 39, were gunned down by two masked men at their scrap iron yard along Cedar Hill Trace, Clax­ton Bay, yes­ter­day. Lewis was not harmed.

Po­lice said the at­tack­ers ran out of a sil­ver Nis­san B14 around 8.30 am and opened fire on the broth­ers.

Re­count­ing the fright­en­ing or­deal, he said, “I was stand­ing about 20 feet away from them when the car pull up and as they jump out, they just start­ed shoot­ing. One of the oc­cu­pants walked up and just went over both of them and just start­ed squeez­ing.” He rushed to his broth­ers’ aid af­ter the gun­men left, but Steven was al­ready dead. Nicholas was gasp­ing for breath and was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at the hos­pi­tal soon af­ter.

Speak­ing with the me­dia mo­ments af­ter un­der­tak­ers re­moved Steven’s body, Lewis strug­gled to hold back his tears as he sent a mes­sage to those re­spon­si­ble for killing his broth­ers.

“I just want al­lyuh to know this. I for­give al­lyuh for killing my broth­ers, be­cause Je­sus Christ for­gave me of my sins. He died for me on the cross, and I ac­cept Je­sus Christ as my heav­en­ly fa­ther.” De­scrib­ing his broth­ers as God-fear­ing men, Lewis said he be­lieved jus­tice would come, not from the po­lice or the Gov­ern­ment, but from God. “ Vengeance is not for me; it is in my heav­en­ly fa­ther’s hands, Je­sus Christ is his name,” he said.

Lewis, who worked in the busi­ness as a truck dri­ver, be­lieves his broth­ers were killed be­cause Steven re­fused to give in to ex­tor­tion de­mands. “Ex­tor­tion. They tried to ex­tort him, and he was against it. He said he not go­ing through that,” he said.

Steven’s wife, Fariyah Mo­hammed-Lewis, said her hus­band had dropped her off about an hour be­fore the shoot­ing. She said they had planned a pool out­ing with their daugh­ter’s class yes­ter­day to cel­e­brate her birth­day.

Their daugh­ter—the youngest of their three chil­dren—turns sev­en on Mon­day. Nicholas had no chil­dren.

She added that Steven had been rent­ing the yard where he con­duct­ed his busi­ness for four years and had nev­er com­plained to her about any prob­lems he might have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

Ken­neth Jainanan, an as­sis­tant pas­tor at the church the broth­ers at­tend­ed, said Steven was well-loved in the com­mu­ni­ty. “He’s a pil­lar in this com­mu­ni­ty. He helps every­body he comes in con­tact with, in the church as well.”

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia he was un­aware of the ex­tor­tion al­le­ga­tions but was con­fi­dent homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors would un­cov­er the mo­tive and bring those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice.

Po­lice lat­er found the sil­ver coloured ve­hi­cle aban­doned along Union Road in Clax­ton Bay. They sus­pect it was used as a get­away car.

This was the sec­ond dou­ble mur­der in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion in al­most three weeks. On Oc­to­ber 28, Kavi­ta De­osaran, 55, pro­pri­etor of SO­HO Beau­ty Haven Spa, and her cus­tomer, Cheryl Dixon, 67, were fa­tal­ly shot by a lone gun­man in­side the spa along South­ern Main Road, Cou­va.