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Friday, July 18, 2025

Laventille triple murder a message to gangsters

by

Rhondor Dowlat-Rostant
2194 days ago
20190715

The dri­ve-by shoot­ing in Laven­tille on Sun­day night that claimed the life of three friends, in­clud­ing a 15-year-old boy, has be­ing de­scribed as a “mes­sage” to oth­er peo­ple in an on­go­ing gang dis­pute in the area.

The three were not be­lieved to be tar­gets but were sac­ri­fi­cial lambs in the crim­i­nal world, a res­i­dent said.

The vic­tims were iden­ti­fied as Saleem Pe­ters, 15; Sher­marke Wick­ham, 31 and Dami­an Granger, 37, all of Up­per East­ern Quar­ry. A fourth per­son, a 40-year-old man, was shot on one of his legs.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 11 pm a group of men was lim­ing by Dasheen Shop when a black car drove up to them and a gun­man came out be­fore fir­ing sev­er­al shots at the group.

The gun­man es­caped in the same ve­hi­cle, head­ing south along East­ern Quar­ry Road.

Wick­ham was pro­nounced dead on the scene while the two oth­er vic­tims died at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day a res­i­dent in the area, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said the shoot­ing meant for the peo­ple in the area.

“Lis­ten those types of shoot­ings where peo­ple are shot at ran­dom and es­pe­cial­ly to their backs are cod­ed as mes­sages...a mes­sage for who, for what and why, we don’t know but they are mes­sages mean­ing a body for a body but them fel­las who get shoot were not bad guys and were not in any gangs for sure,” the res­i­dent said.

At the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James, Granger’s sis­ter, Ter­ri Ann said her broth­er was wait­ing on a friend, who was run­ning late to go to a par­ty.

“He worked. He was a painter... He is a par­ty boy. He can’t be no bad man. Cause he al­ways out there in every boat ride and par­ty. It is par­ty he was go­ing. “

Ter­ri Ann said she knew the teenag­er, a stu­dent of Ser­vol, well and had known him to sell av­o­ca­dos.

“He was go­ing to school, yes, but used to sell av­o­ca­dos be­cause he want­ed to save up mon­ey to buy a car.”

“But you see them three who dead there, you see that rain that fall last night (Sun­day) it means the earth cry­ing for them and jus­tice and kar­ma will be com­ing. I am a pray­ing woman, and I eh gonna lie, al­lyuh go have more news to read again. Be­cause them there didn’t de­serve that,” she added.

Wick­ham’s sis­ter, Kizzy said she was ly­ing in her bed when she heard the gun­shots but didn’t know that it was her broth­er got killed.

She de­scribed him as the “old peo­ple cham­pi­on” in the neigh­bour­hood.

“The old peo­ple had loved him and I can put my head on a block and say he wasn’t in noth­ing...if he was in that kind of gang­ster life I would have band my bel­ly and say so. But he was the type of per­son who did things for the old peo­ple around him with the kind­ness of his heart. If they want him to go in the gro­cery he would go...any­thing they want him to do he would do,” Kizzy said.

Pe­ters rel­a­tives who were al­so at foren­sics de­clined to give any com­ment to the me­dia.

ASP Subero, Sgt Bur­ris, Sgt Knott of the Besson Street CID and PC Jaimun­gal of the Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit were among the of­fi­cers who vis­it­ed the crime scene.


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