RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Two more mur­ders have tak­en the count to nine for the year so far.

A lor­ry man who was de­liv­er­ing drinks in the Can­taro Vil­lage, San­ta Cruz area was killed yes­ter­day dur­ing an at­tempt­ed rob­bery.

The de­ceased was iden­ti­fied as Nathaniel Brit­to, 20, of Co­conut Dri­ve, Mor­vant.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, Brit­to and an­oth­er work­er, the dri­ver of an un­marked white truck de­liv­er­ing drinks, were in the ve­hi­cle parked along Mc Carthy Street get­ting ready to take sup­plies to a mi­ni-mart when they were ap­proached by gun­men. The dri­ver ran away and sought refuge at a near­by house and with­in sec­onds a spate of gun­shots was heard.

When the dri­ver and res­i­dents checked they saw Brit­to slumped in the cab­bie of the truck. Brit­to died on the scene.

Vis­it­ing the scene were sev­er­al of­fi­cers in­clud­ing crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors, North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, and Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion Two led by In­sp Dirk John.

Al­so at the scene was a rel­a­tive of Brit­to who told Guardian Me­dia that Brit­to start­ed work­ing with the con­trac­tor last month. "He al­so used to work, but he start­ed with this con­trac­tor last month and from what I know, he came to this area to work al­ready so to­day (yes­ter­day) wasn't his first time in the area.

"I re­al­ly don't know what hap­pened, I'm try­ing to put the pieces to­geth­er, but he was very young. Very sad time for us, the fam­i­ly."

A San­ta Cruz res­i­dent, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, de­scribed the area as "de­cent". He said, "Peo­ple who are born and grow up in San­ta Cruz are very nice peo­ple, but it's the ones from the out­side who come in the San­ta Cruz area who are giv­ing the area a bad name." The killing was a shock for res­i­dents, he added.

"We just hear gun­shots like rain and when we came out we re­alised is kill they kill the young work­er. First time I ever saw some­thing like this go­ing on here. It is fright­en­ing," the res­i­dent added.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, Homi­cide Re­gion Two of­fi­cers are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mur­der of 31-year-old David Hinds of Blake Av­enue, San­gre Grande.

Po­lice said at about 3 am on Fri­day, res­i­dents of Uni­ty Lane heard sev­er­al gun­shots but took no note of it. How­ev­er, short­ly af­ter mid­night a res­i­dent walk­ing along a track off Uni­ty Lane dis­cov­ered Hinds' bul­let-rid­dled body.

Po­lice said Hinds' body was clad in a black coloured T-shirt, black trousers, and mul­ti­coloured slip­pers with a black ski mask on his head. The body was found ly­ing face down with two gun­shot wounds to the left side of the head.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing in­to the two mur­ders.