Derek Achong

A 55-year-old man and his nephew were mur­dered dur­ing a rob­bery in Waller­field yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 10 am, Clive “Ted­dy Brock­shot” Strak­er and his nephew, Kelvin “Tall­man” Thomas, were sit­ting in front of Strak­er’s mi­ni-mart at 100 Acres Road in Waller­field when a sil­ver Nis­san Ti­i­da stopped in front of them.

Three armed men got out of the car and threat­ened the duo. Two of the gun­men es­cort­ed Strak­er in­side, while their ac­com­plice stood guard over Thomas, who re­mained out­side.

The men robbed Strak­er of a quan­ti­ty of cash, al­co­hol and cig­a­rettes be­fore shoot­ing him sev­er­al times.

The men then shot Thomas as they were leav­ing the scene.

Strak­er died on the scene, while Thomas was tak­en to the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he suc­cumbed to his gun­shot wounds while re­ceiv­ing emer­gency treat­ment.

Strak­er and Thomas’ mur­ders, and that of 29-year-old De­nil­son “Nel­son” Kennedy in San­ta Cruz one hour lat­er, raised the mur­der count for the year to 25.

In­spec­tor Ram­jag, WPC Good­luck and PC Oliv­er of the Re­gion Two Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

One dead, one in­jured in San­ta Cruz am­bush

A 29-year-old man was killed while his friend was in­jured af­ter a shoot­ing in San­ta Cruz yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 11 am, De­nil­son “Nel­son” Kennedy and Sha­keem Hospedales were lim­ing with two neigh­bours near their homes at Ton­ka Bean Ter­race, Pi­p­i­ol Road, Can­taro Vil­lage, San­ta Cruz, when they were am­bushed by two gun­men.

The four friends at­tempt­ed to evade their at­tack­ers but were fol­lowed by the gun­men, who shot at them sev­er­al times be­fore run­ning away.

Kennedy, who was shot in his head and ab­domen, col­lapsed in a drain in front of his home where he died. He was pro­nounced dead on the scene by a Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer (DMO).

Hospedales, who was shot in his ab­domen, was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal by po­lice of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed to the shoot­ing. He re­mained ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day.

When a news team from Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the hill­side com­mu­ni­ty, crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors were seen col­lect­ing more than a dozen spent shells that were found scat­tered around Kennedy’s home.

Res­i­dents were tight-lipped over what tran­spired, with one of Kennedy’s friends, who es­caped un­scathed, sit­ting silent­ly near Kennedy’s body, which was cov­ered with a bed sheet, un­til it was even­tu­al­ly re­moved by un­der­tak­ers.

Homi­cide de­tec­tives said Kennedy was known to po­lice and they be­lieve that the at­tack may be con­nect­ed to a re­cent shoot­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty.

An au­top­sy is sched­uled to be per­formed on Kennedy’s body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, lat­er this week.