Trinidad: Five killed on bloody Friday

(Trinidad Guardian) A Cunu­pia woman was chopped to death on Fri­day night in one of five mur­ders that oc­curred on Fri­day night across the coun­try.

Bassie Sook­nanan, 53, of Per­sad Av­enue, Mon Plasir Road, was re­port­ed­ly killed by a close male rel­a­tive at around 10.40 pm.

Neigh­bours called the po­lice af­ter hear­ing a vi­o­lent al­ter­ca­tion at Sook­nanan’s home. When of­fi­cers ar­rived, they found her life­less body in a pool of blood and the male rel­a­tive, al­so aged 53, ly­ing near­by bleed­ing from stab wounds to the neck.

The man was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt.Hope, where he re­ceived emer­gency treat­ment. He was ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day.

Sook­nanan was a house­wife and moth­er of two sons aged 26 and 24. Her rel­a­tives were re­luc­tant to speak yes­ter­day but neigh­bours ex­pressed shock over the in­ci­dent.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, po­lice are search­ing for a gun­man who opened fire on a group of peo­ple at a house in St James on Fri­day, killing a teenag­er and wound­ing an­oth­er man.

The vic­tim has been iden­ti­fied as Kurlan Gunn, 16.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred at around 9.30 pm on Fri­day while the vic­tim was lim­ing with a group of men at a house lo­cat­ed be­hind the St. James Am­phithe­atre.

The in­jured man, who has not been iden­ti­fied, was shot in the neck and is be­ing treat­ed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, at around 10.30 pm at Es­pinet Street, Laven­tille, po­lice of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a re­port of gun­shots had been fired at the oc­cu­pants of a car.

An­son Ja­cob Lewis, al­so known as Bulls, was seat­ed in his car with his girl­friend when an un­known gun­man be­gan shoot­ing at them. Lewis tried to dri­ve away but the ve­hi­cle hit a curb and over­turned. He died at the scene.

His girl­friend’s in­juries are not life-threat­en­ing, po­lice said.

In third fa­tal shoot­ing, of­fi­cers from the North­ern Di­vi­sion ERP on mo­bile pa­trol re­spond­ed to re­port of gun­shots be­ing heard First Pri­vate Road, Mt. Dor, Champs Fleurs. When they ar­rived at the scene at around 11 pm, they found Ker­ron “Yan­kee” Primus ly­ing in a pool of blood near the David Nakhid Recre­ation Ground.

The of­fi­cers fol­lowed a trail of blood to a house at First Pri­vate Road where they found sev­er­al shell cas­ings at the back of the prop­er­ty. No one was in the house.

The fourth mur­der took place just af­ter mid­night at Crown Trace, En­ter­prise, in Ch­agua­nas where fol­low­ing re­ports of loud ex­plo­sions, of­fi­cers found Keron “Chip” Jack, 27, ly­ing dead in the road. He had been shot sev­er­al times.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to all the in­ci­dents.