Trinidad: Land dispute ends in murder

(Trinidad Guardian) A dis­pute over land is sus­pect­ed to be the mo­tive be­hind the mur­der of a Coalmine, San­gre Grande gar­den­er on Friday.

Po­lice said Nigel Charles, 39, a fa­ther of two, was con­front­ed by a gun­man who shot him to the head.

An eye­wit­ness said Charles, a fa­ther of two, was fill­ing wa­ter at the pipe in his gar­den around 7 am when a man, with his face was cov­ered, whipped out a gun and be­gan fir­ing at Charles.

The wit­ness said he heard Charles said “You go do me that boy” but the gun­man con­tin­ued to fire at Charles.

Charles, the wit­ness said, at­tempt­ed to run away but fell to the ground af­ter col­lid­ing with a tree. The gun­man es­caped in the near­by bush­es.

One of Charles’ friends said there was an on­go­ing quar­rel for land and Charles had got­ten death threats on Thurs­day.

The vic­tim’s moth­er, Jean Charles, who re­sides at Va­len­cia, told Guardian Me­dia she left a house for her son be­cause of a fam­i­ly dis­pute about the in­her­i­tance of a par­cel of land.

She is hop­ing that those re­spon­si­ble for her son’s death would sur­ren­der to the po­lice.

The vic­tim’s wife, Bren­da Lee, said she had just reached work when she got a mes­sage from her el­dest son that her hus­band had been shot and killed.

“My co-work­er took me back home where I saw neigh­bours gath­ered look­ing down at the gar­den. When I looked I saw Charles ly­ing on the ground life­less. I hugged my two sons and wept,” she said.

“This is yet an­oth­er in­ci­dent where chil­dren are left fa­ther­less be­cause of some ruth­less gun­man,” she said.

A team of po­lice of­fi­cers from San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion led by Supt Kennedy De­osaran, In­sp Ju­ri and Sgt Ed­wards re­spond­ed to the re­port.

The killing of Charles brings the num­ber of mur­ders for the year to 83.

Man crit­i­cal af­ter shot in bed

In an un­re­lat­ed shoot­ing on Thurs­day night, Os­ei Clarke, 34 of Damarie Hill, Guaico, who sells wa­ter on the high­way was shot by two armed men while in bed with his girl­friend.

Po­lice re­port­ed around 9.30 pm on Thurs­day night Clarke and his 26-year-old girl­friend were in the bed­room when the heard foot­steps in the yard. The gun­men forced open a door and shot Clarke.

Clarke was tak­en to San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal where he un­der­went emer­gency surgery and was ward­ed at the In­ten­sive Care Unit in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion.