Three in­ci­dents, three hours apart on Wednes­day night raised the mur­der toll for 2019 by three to five.

In the first of those in­ci­dents at Cal­vary Hill, Ari­ma, Ky­ron “Bee­tle” Bartholomew was gunned down as he re­versed his AD Wag­on down a hill on­to Prince Street at around 7:40 pm. CCTV cam­eras cap­tured the mur­der, with the killer emerg­ing from a near­by yard as Bartholomew re­versed on­to Prince Street.

The gun­man opened fire as Bartholomew at­tempt­ed to es­cape. He was fa­tal­ly hit and his car crashed in­to a wall.

The gun­man fled on foot.

Bartholomew, 24, was tak­en to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal where he was pro­nounced dead.

Po­lice said Bartholomew had been pre­vi­ous­ly ques­tioned in re­la­tion to mur­der last year but had been re­leased. It was not clear if his death was a reprisal act, they said.

About two hours lat­er, 23-year-old Keenan Smith was stabbed to death in Curepe fol­low­ing an ar­gu­ment with two men near the cor­ner of Bushe and Wood­ford Streets short­ly be­fore 10 pm.

The ar­gu­ment erupt­ed in­to vi­o­lence when Smith grabbed a stone and threw it in the di­rec­tion of his ad­ver­saries. One of the men went to a near­by house and re­turned with a knife. Smith was over­pow­ered by the duo, stabbed and left for dead.

Res­i­dents in the area came to his aid and called for an am­bu­lance, but Smith was pro­nounced dead at the hos­pi­tal.

At the scene, Smith’s slip­per was left a short dis­tance from where the bloody fra­cas took place.

Two teenagers, aged 16 and 17, were ar­rest­ed af­ter pa­trons at a near­by bar stopped them from es­cap­ing and turned them over to po­lice called to the scene. They re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to yes­ter­day evening.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent about 30 min­utes lat­er in Mal­abar, Kelvin Dex­ter Ren­nie was shot in the head.

Res­i­dents of Ack­bar­ali Trace Ex­ten­sion said just af­ter 10.30 pm, gun­shots were heard in the area and they found the vic­tim ly­ing in the road­way bleed­ing from a gun­shot wound.

Ren­nie, 32, of Point Cumana, Care­nage, was tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, then trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex where he died at around noon.

These in­ci­dents took the mur­der toll for the year to five.