Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Princes Town res­i­dents cow­ered in fear ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing as gun­men am­bushed a cou­ple, killing a woman and in­jur­ing her boyfriend in a hail of gun­fire.

Twen­ty-sev­en-year-old Moni­fa Car­rie, a moth­er of three of Beetham Gar­dens, Port-of-Spain, and Isa­iah Cruick­shank, 30, al­so known as “Touchy,” were shot mul­ti­ple times around 12.20 am.

The cou­ple had just left Cruick­shank’s home at 3rd Moo­nan Av­enue, Mal­gretoute Road, in a white Nis­san Sen­tra when the at­tack oc­curred along Man­a­ham­bre Branch Road.

Po­lice said a white AD wag­on blocked their path, and two gun­men ex­it­ed the ve­hi­cle and opened fire.

Dur­ing the at­tack, Cruick­shank man­aged to ex­it the car and ran in­to a near­by res­i­dent’s prop­er­ty. The as­sailants then opened both the front and back doors of the ve­hi­cle and con­tin­ued shoot­ing.

Car­rie at­tempt­ed to es­cape but fell to the ground, where she was shot again. A stray bul­let al­so pen­e­trat­ed a near­by res­i­dent’s win­dow.

De­scrib­ing the or­deal as ter­ri­fy­ing, a res­i­dent said she grabbed her chil­dren and told them to “duck” as gun­shots rang out. She be­lieves Car­rie tried to move in­to the dri­ver’s seat and dri­ve off af­ter Cruick­shank fled.

“One of the ban­dits came up be­hind the car and start­ed shoot­ing again. I heard the woman scream out. They opened the back door, then the dri­ver’s side door and fired more shots. She fell out on the road and the man shot her,” the res­i­dent said.

Min­utes lat­er, Cruick­shank’s broth­er ran from their home, lift­ed Car­rie and took her, along with his broth­er, to the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where she was pro­nounced dead.

Cruick­shank was lat­er trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he was list­ed in sta­ble con­di­tion.

At the fam­i­ly’s home yes­ter­day, Cruick­shank’s broth­er said he heard about 18 gun­shots. He added that his broth­er was in and out of con­scious­ness while be­ing tak­en to hos­pi­tal.

He said he did not know why the cou­ple was tar­get­ed and that they had nev­er in­di­cat­ed their lives were in dan­ger.

The broth­er de­scribed the pair as in­sep­a­ra­ble, not­ing they trav­elled week­ly be­tween his home and Car­rie’s in Port-of-Spain. They share a two-year-old son and al­so have chil­dren from pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ships.

He said Cruick­shank is a mar­ket ven­dor, while Car­rie worked as a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer and op­er­at­ed a par­lour in front of his home.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­gion Three, are con­tin­u­ing in­quiries.