(Trinidad Express) – A State witness living a new life in the United States, after helping to convict two killers last year, was hunted to his New York apartment and shot dead on Monday.

His wife and child were not harmed.

Sean Quamina, a confessed thief, was the star witness in the murder trial of Garvin ’Beam’ Sookram and Keron ’Bellies’ Lopez last February.

Reports from New York said Quamina, who lived in Red Hook District, was shot in the head inside his apartment on Lorraine Street, near Otsego Street.

New York detectives say they know the identity of his killer. Quamina had testified to witnessing the murders of his robbery accomplices Kerwin ’Richie Rich’ Hinds and Kerwin ’Ox’ Cyrus at a track off Sawmill Avenue, Barataria, in July 2004.

Quamina, 26, was protected for five years by officers of the Justice Protection Programme. He was kept at a safe house and escorted to the Magistrates’ and High Court.

He wore a bulletproof vest when the court went to the scene of the killing at Barataria in February 2009.

Based on Quamina’s evidence, Lopez, and Sookram – a reputed gang leader -were found guilty and sentenced to hang.

Quamina, a ’PH’ driver who lived at Springvale, Claxton Bay, was the nephew of Rev Cecil Quamina, the pastor of the First Church of the Open Bible in San Fernando.

At the family home, where a tent was erected for a wake, a woman, who said she was Quamina’s mother, said she got a telephone call on Monday to say he had been killed at 3 pm.

She said Quamina lived in the US for the past three years and was expecting to secure permanent residence.

“His wife called and said Sean is no more,” said his mother. The Express learned that against the advice of police, Quamina returned to Trinidad to attend the January 4 funeral of his grandmother, Androlina Quamina, whose service was held at the First Church of Open Bible, San Fernando.

Those who attended saw several police officers and police vehicles.

Quamina’s relatives said they would likely attend his funeral in the US.