There were hard­ly any dry eyes yes­ter­day at the fi­nal send-off for the four young sib­lings killed in the Heights of Gua­napo, Ari­ma, last week Thurs­day.

Faith Pe­terkin, 10; Ar­i­an­na Pe­terkin, 14; Shain Pe­terkin, 17; and Tiffany Pe­terkin, 19, were gunned down around mid­night as they slept at home with their rel­a­tives.

Scores of mourn­ers at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al ser­vice at K Allen and Sons’ Fu­ner­al Di­rec­tors on Broad­way Street in Ari­ma.

As they walked through the doors, at­ten­dees passed near the closed cas­kets of the Pe­terkins, whose im­ages were print­ed on them. The cas­kets could not be opened as their bod­ies be­gan to de­com­pose be­fore the au­top­sy ear­li­er this week. Blame was placed on the first fu­ner­al home but one of their rep­re­sen­ta­tives placed blame for this on the po­lice.

De­spite it be­ing a part of the pro­gramme, there was no eu­lo­gy, as rel­a­tives were un­able to con­tain their grief. Some sat sto­ic dur­ing the ser­vice, oth­ers shed tears and hugged each oth­er.

Pas­tor Mar­lon Al­varez, who spoke at length about the spate of crime in the coun­try, said mur­ders have be­come an every­day oc­cur­rence. How­ev­er, he said this par­tic­u­lar in­ci­dent served as a new low.

“The numb­ness of a na­tion gripped in what is now an every­day oc­cur­rence of cal­lous­ness, cold-heart­ed­ness, ruth­less­ness, law­less­ness that ap­par­ent­ly we have be­come de­sen­si­tised to. Whether we con­sid­er to­day to be more, or less dark, it is still a very dark day in T&T,” he said.

The pas­tor al­so is­sued a warn­ing to those re­spon­si­ble for com­mit­ting the crime, ad­vis­ing that while they may es­cape the law, they can­not es­cape the wrath of God.

“To the per­son or per­sons that have caused us to be in this dark mo­ment to­day, and have many oth­er peo­ple across this na­tion in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances, is bet­ter yuh hang a mill­stone around your neck be­cause God com­ing for yuh,” he said.

Al­varez al­so cau­tioned peo­ple against blam­ing politi­cians for the na­tion’s de­cline, as he not­ed that in­di­vid­u­als are re­spon­si­ble for their own ac­tions. He, how­ev­er, crit­i­cised law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who see crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and say noth­ing.

“By not tak­ing a side, you are tak­ing a side. Si­lence is con­sent. When we stay silent, even­tu­al­ly, the bul­lets reach by us. We tell our­selves is them, is some­body else. But not long af­ter­wards is meh neigh­bour and not be­fore long is my house and how have we got­ten here in the first place? Be­cause some dotish in­di­vid­ual de­cid­ed to do some­thing wrong and no­body said noth­ing, no­body did any­thing,” the pas­tor said as he fought back tears.

As the floor was opened for trib­utes, those who knew the chil­dren re­spond­ed to so­cial me­dia the­o­ries that sug­gest­ed there was a sin­is­ter rea­son for their killings.

“I will miss them so much but I just want every­body to know, to­day, what­ev­er ru­mours you hear, it wasn’t true. These were the most lov­ing chil­dren ever,” said Pix­ie Lares, who lives in the area and watched the vic­tims grow up.

One of Tiffany’s rel­a­tives, Mar­i­on Stephens, al­so shared her view.

“It’s re­al­ly a re­al sad thing. You know, peo­ple al­ways say some­body nice when they gone but this girl was re­al­ly a nice girl,” she said.

The prin­ci­pal of the San­ta Rosa Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, where ten-year-old Faith at­tend­ed, said her teach­ers and pupils need­ed coun­selling af­ter the in­ci­dent. She said the school is al­so mourn­ing the old­er sib­lings, who re­ceived their pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion there.

“The chil­dren are be­hav­ing dif­fer­ent­ly, and they are re­al­ly sad­dened and grief-strick­en by this,” she said.

Mean­while, Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les ad­mon­ished the pub­lic against spec­u­lat­ing about the mo­tive for the killings. She said peo­ple have been judge­men­tal de­spite not hav­ing the facts.

“The heinous­ness of the crime, the wicked­ness of what has tran­spired, it is very dif­fi­cult for any­body to con­tem­plate what is in the minds of peo­ple to do such an act. So, this is not the time for us to come to all kinds of con­clu­sions,” Beck­les said.

Two of the vic­tims’ sib­lings sur­vived the at­tack, along with their mom Ane­sa Ram­per­sad and dad Sean Pe­terkin, who were present at the fu­ner­al.

Po­lice have ar­rest­ed one per­son in con­nec­tion with the bru­tal in­ci­dent.