(Trinidad Express) Brothers Joseph and Jason Lawrence wanted to stay away from bad company, so they invited a few friends to play cards at their home. The game cost them their lives on Sunday evening, after three gunmen staged an ambush and shot them dead.
Two friends, brothers Shammy and Sanjay Ramroop, suffered injuries and were being treated at the hospital. Two other men escaped.
The killings happened at the Mungal Trace, off Orangefield Road, Carapichaima, on Sunday night.
Nadie Lawrence, sister of the slain men, said yesterday, “They were playing cards and gambling in the back of the house because they did not really want to go out and get themselves in trouble. And all of a sudden three men ran through the track at the back of the house and began shooting. All of them scampered but my two brothers were killed. The two boys from down the road get shot as well, but they in hospital and two others had to run for their lives.”
Nadie said she was inside the house when the gunshots rang out.
“My brothers usually played cards in front the house, but yesterday they went to the back because my father was building a shed. They sat under the shed and played. This has shocked us because my brothers were no gangsters,” she said.
Police said the gunmen entered through a dirt track at the back of the house and pounced on the group of men.
Joseph Lawrence, 38, was shot in the chest and collapsed in a drain, while his 29-year-old brother suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
Sanjay Ramroop was wounded on the neck and Shammy on the left arm, police said. The gunmen then ran through a squatting village to escape. Up to late evening no one was arrested.
Nadie said Joseph was the father of two children and worked with a contractor at a jobsite in Pointe-a-Pierre. Jason worked with a scaffolding company and had no children.
The Ramroops’ relatives were too afraid to speak about the incident.
The bodies of the slain brothers were removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James for autopsies.
