The younger broth­er of for­mer Ch­agua­nas may­or Natasha Navas was one of two men mur­dered in Ari­ma and Laven­tille on Wednes­day evening. And homi­cide de­tec­tives were up to late yes­ter­day in­ves­ti­gat­ing yet an­oth­er mur­der, that of a 52-year-old woman who died at hos­pi­tal while be­ing treat­ed for stab wounds she re­ceived dur­ing a dis­pute in Diego Mar­tin on Sun­day af­ter­noon. In the first in­ci­dent, around 3.45 pm on Wednes­day, Jevon "Jesse" Navas, 23, of Pin­to?Road, Ari­ma, was lim­ing with friends near his home. Navas left his friends to re­turn home, but af­ter a few min­utes they heard sev­er­al gun­shots com­ing from a near­by road. They found Navas ly­ing face down in a bushy area of Right­eous Lane, with gun­shot wounds to the back. He was tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he died about an hour lat­er while be­ing treat­ed. Po­lice said a mo­tive for his mur­der has not been es­tab­lished. Natasha Navas be­came the first fe­male may­or of the bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas in 2009 af­ter Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan, now Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter, was oust­ed from the post.

The T&T Guardian was un­able to con­tact Navas on her cell­phone up to late yes­ter­day evening. Su­per­in­ten­dents Garth Nel­son, In­sp Wayne Bap­tiste and Sgt Gan­ga Singh are in­ves­ti­gat­ing Navas' mur­der. Al­most sev­en hours lat­er, on Wednes­day night, Kevon Alexan­der, 25, of Dan Kel­ly, Pic­ton Road, Laven­tille, was at his home with his wife when he re­ceived a phone call in which the caller asked him to step out­side. Alexan­der com­plied and af­ter a cou­ple of min­utes, his wife heard sev­er­al loud ex­plo­sions. She found him ly­ing in the yard. He had been shot in the head and was pro­nounced dead on the scene by a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer. Alexan­der was well known to po­lice and was said to be a se­nior mem­ber of a gang which op­er­ates in the area. A rel­a­tive who spoke to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day said he was eas­i­ly in­flu­enced by neg­a­tive el­e­ments in his com­mu­ni­ty. "He aban­doned his fam­i­ly for his friends and now he get kill," the weep­ing rel­a­tive said. And 52-year-old Di­an­nia Lewis, of Sea Trace, Bagatelle, Diego Mar­tin, died around 5.30 pm yes­ter­day while be­ing treat­ed for stab wounds.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 4 pm on Sun­day, Lewis vis­it­ed the Hamil­ton Av­enue, Diego Mar­tin, home of her friend Cur­tis Goodridge to quell a dis­tur­bance be­tween him and one of his rel­a­tives. While she tried to sep­a­rate the feud­ing par­ties, Goodridge's 59-year-old rel­a­tive re­port­ed­ly drew a knife and stabbed Lewis sev­er­al times, then grabbed a cut­lass and chopped her. Lewis and Goodridge were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Goodridge was treat­ed and dis­charged ear­li­er this week, while Lewis died of her in­juries. In­ves­ti­ga­tors ar­rest­ed the rel­a­tive short­ly af­ter the at­tack. Up to late yes­ter­day, he re­mained de­tained at the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion. Homi­cide de­tec­tives are ex­pect­ed to lay charges against the man this week­end. In an in­ter­view at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James yes­ter­day, Lewis's broth­er Otis Hink­son de­scribed his sis­ter as a fun-lov­ing and fam­i­ly-fo­cused per­son. "She al­ways know how to make every­body laugh. It is a re­al bad time for our fam­i­ly now... We tak­ing this hard," Hink­son said. Hink­son said his sis­ter was known as a peace­mak­er in her com­mu­ni­ty and was al­ways will­ing to lend a help­ing hand to neigh­bours and friends. In­sp Hen­ry Dann, Sgt Bris­tol and PC Bernard are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.