RALPH BAN­WARIE

Free­lance writer

The own­er of a quar­ry and wash plant was killed by gun­men while at his Old Va­len­cia

Road house yes­ter­day evening.

The de­ceased has been iden­ti­fied as Andy Fran­cois, aka "Fat­man". He is the fa­ther of three.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 2:30 pm Sgt Bhim, Cpls Vesam­my, Ram­nar­ine, Aman, PCs Pe­ters, Benoit re­spond­ed to re­ports of a shoot­ing in the Va­len­cia Old Road area. They were joined by of­fi­cers from the Arou­ca Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion 11.

The po­lice said they found Fran­cois’ body which bore gun­shot wound ly­ing on the ground. He was clad in blue jeans and a black T-shirt which was soaked in blood.

Po­lice were in­formed that two ve­hi­cles, a pur­ple Note and Black Nis­san Navara, drove up to Fran­cois’ house on Va­len­cia Old Road. Two armed men alight­ed from the Note ve­hi­cle and called out to Fran­cois who came out. They re­port­ed­ly told him, "Fat­man, we come for you” and be­gan open­ing fire on him. Fran­cois at­tempt­ed to run but was pur­sued by the gun­men who con­tin­ued fir­ing. He fell down a small precipice where he died.

His friend who was in the house ran through the back door and hid be­hind a grav­el heap where he called the po­lice.

When Guardian Me­dia spoke to his wife, Chantel, the moth­er of his three chil­dren at their Man­zanil­la home, she said he was mak­ing jokes with them when he woke up yes­ter­day morn­ing. He ate a sand­wich and drank a glass of juice, but strange enough he went back to bed.

She said his dri­ver came to pick him up and wait­ed al­most two hours be­fore he got dressed.

His wife said he looked con­fused and she asked him if he was not feel­ing like go­ing to the wash plant in Old Va­len­cia Road, but he did not re­spond. He then asked for a T-shirt, put it on, kissed her and his three chil­dren, and told her he would call and let her know when to come for him.

His dis­traught wife said when she did not get any call from her hus­band, she called him, but got no re­sponse. Some­one she did not know an­swered his phone af­ter sev­er­al calls. She got dressed and as she was about to leave her Man­zanil­la home, she got an in­com­ing call from his phone in­form­ing her that her hus­band had died.

She went to Va­len­cia where she saw her hus­band's body on the ground.

A Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer viewed the body and or­dered its re­moval to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary, pend­ing a post mortem at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.

Fran­cois's killing pushed the mur­der toll to 444

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.