(Trinidad Express) Last month Lloyd Baptiste escaped death after his house was firebombed. He was not so lucky yesterday.
Baptiste, 41, yesterday became the country’s first murder victim for the year when he was fatally shot.
The murder toll for 2011 stood at 354, according to an Express tally, but that figure will likely climb as investigators are awaiting forensic and DNA reports on several skeletal remains found across the country.
Hours earlier, Baptiste became the uncle of one of the first babies to be born on New Year’s Day at the Port of Spain General Hospital.
It was around 2.15 p.m., police said, that Baptiste, 41, of McCarno Quarry, Beverly Hills, went to Gate 50, Picton Street, Laventille, to visit to a friend when he was ambushed behind a house in the area.
He was shot several times about the body, including the head, before he collapsed and died on the spot, said investigators.
Baptiste, who was employed with the Ministry of Housing Colour Me Orange programme—had his house firebombed on the night of December 14, said his sister Angel Baptiste.
That incident was sparked after a child playing with a starlight accidentally lit a house afire. As an act of revenge, other residents torched a car in the area and shot one man, believing the house fire was deliberately set.
Investigators said they did not have a clear motive for the killing, as Baptiste was not known to them.
When she arrived on the scene, Baptiste’s sister broke down in tears. “Only today my nephew born and now my brother dead. This is real evil thing, boy. Me and my mother just talking and wondering how my brother was spending his new year. How my mother going to take this news now?
“Just the other day they burn down his house. Now they come and kill him… Lloyd, why did you have to come up here. Why did you have to come up here?” she cried.
Angel said her brother was someone who always kept to himself and stayed “out of everybody else business”.
Up to late yesterday evening, crime scene detectives and investigators from the Besson Street Police Station were on the scene, conducting enquiries and processing the area for evidence.
