RALPH BAN­WARIE

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Va­len­cia record­ed its first mur­der for 2026 on Sat­ur­day night, af­ter a woman was shot and killed dur­ing a gun at­tack on a ve­hi­cle she was in.The vic­tim has been iden­ti­fied as 50-year-old Nan­cy Al­mar­ales, of Daniel Trace, Va­len­cia. She was shot sev­er­al times about the body and died at the scene.An­oth­er man was al­so in­jured in the in­ci­dent. He has been iden­ti­fied as 50-year-old Ken­rick Charles, of Daniel Trace. He was shot in the chest and re­mains ward­ed at the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he is be­ing treat­ed and kept un­der ob­ser­va­tion.Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, at around 11.55 pm on Sat­ur­day, PC Ear­le was on sen­try du­ty at the front of the Va­len­cia Po­lice Post when he ob­served a white Nis­san AD Wag­on, reg­is­tra­tion num­ber PCP 6622, dri­ve along the foot­path in front of the sta­tion and come to a stop.PC Ear­le saw a man ex­it the dri­ver’s seat, walk to­wards the po­lice post and col­lapse. He im­me­di­ate­ly called for as­sis­tance, and PC Rat­tans­ingh and WPC Gon­za­les re­spond­ed.The of­fi­cers found the man ly­ing on the pave­ment, suf­fer­ing from what ap­peared to be gun­shot in­juries to his chest. A check of the ve­hi­cle al­so re­vealed a woman slumped over in the front pas­sen­ger seat. She showed no signs of life.The in­jured man was iden­ti­fied as Charles, the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle. He was rushed to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was med­ical­ly ex­am­ined and placed un­der ob­ser­va­tion.Charles lat­er told po­lice that at around 11.30 pm, he picked up the woman at Va­len­cia Junc­tion, af­ter she hired him to take her to her home at Clarence Trace, Va­len­cia, to col­lect mon­ey and then re­turn her to the junc­tion.He said he dropped her off at her home and drove a short dis­tance away to turn around. As he re­turned and the woman en­tered the ve­hi­cle, sev­er­al loud ex­plo­sions were heard.In an at­tempt to es­cape the gun­fire, Charles sped off and drove out of Clarence Trace. Up­on reach­ing near Va­len­cia Junc­tion, he felt a burn­ing sen­sa­tion in his chest. He then drove di­rect­ly to the Va­len­cia Po­lice Post, where he ex­it­ed the ve­hi­cle and col­lapsed.A dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer viewed the woman’s body and or­dered its re­moval to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal pend­ing a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion.The scene was processed by of­fi­cers from the Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tion Unit, and en­quiries are con­tin­u­ing by the Arou­ca Homi­cide Bu­reau.