MURDER FOR MURDER

RYAN HAMILTON-DAVIS and SHANE SUPERVILLE

IT'S a case, police theorise, of murder for murder.

Hours after gunmen in an SUV opened fire on a group of people in Sea Lots on Sunday night, leaving two dead and six injured, a woman was shot dead outside her home in Sealots yesterday morning - revenge, police said, for the Sunday night shooting.

Tracy Julius Rogers, 31, a mother of two was called out by name by someone at her Pioneer Drive home at 7.15 am. As she went to the front to see who was calling her, Rogers was shot repeatedly and slumped to the ground. She was taken to Port of Spain General Hospital but died while receiving treatment.

Rogers' murder took place less than 12 hours after the drive-by shooting which occurred along Pioneer Drive. At around 8.10 pm on Sunday, a car drove along Pioneer Drive with the occupants firing shots at people standing on the side of the road.

Shot were Jamal Leid, 26; Nigel Roberts, 30; Shenelle Johnson, 24; Trey Beard, 23; Trevor Isaac, 56; Rahim Bruce, 23; Patrick Laurie, 54; and Rawle Williams, 39. Williams who was shot in the chest, died at the scene while Laurie who was shot in the right shoulder, died at hospital yesterday.

Police said an unregistered SUV was used in the drive-by shooting. Police sources said that a Sea Lots businessman with links to a Government minister was the main target of the drive-by shooting but he was not hit during the shooting.

Police also said Rogers' killers may have believed she was affiliated with the gunmen who carried out the Sunday night shooting and killed her in revenge.

Both police sources and residents from Sealots, forwarded a series of Whatsapp voice-notes in which a woman is heard speaking to a man about the Sunday night shooting. In the recording, the woman is heard telling the man that they made an attempt on someone’s life but missed.

Police believe the community leader was the "someone" referred to in the voice note. Sources told Newsday yesterday that the community leader was present at the regular liming spot on Pioneer Drive, playing a game of poker with several friends when the drive-by went down.

Yesterday, Sea Lots was a tense place. A resident who claimed to have witnessed the shooting, gave his account of the incident. “I was one of the people who had to run for my life,” said the man who identified himself only as "Crow."

"We were liming. It had a gamble inside and outside and two cars just pulled up and started spraying bullets. They opened fire on the crowd and they didn’t care who they hit. People lost their lives.”

At the Forensic Science Centre in St James, relatives of Williams and Laurie spoke to reporters while awaiting the results of autopsies.

Laurie's relatives revealed he was a calypsonian who went by the sobriquet “Revealer”. Newsday was told the 57-year-old father of two sang calypso for a number of years and was registered with a Calypso tent.

The mother of Laurie's two children, told Newsday she had already given the youngsters aged nine and six, the news of their father's death. “I said to them, you know, your father is dead. They asked if it was true, and I told them yes.”

Williams’ brother told Newsday he was a labourer who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He said he called 37-year-old Williams to help rebuild his house which burned down last year.

“He lived in D’abadie, but he used to come down and relax and help me. He came down on Sunday and spent the day, then he got a call to come and lime. He was playing cards when everything happened,” Williams’ brother said.

Up to press time, the murder toll was 51. When contacted for a comment, Police Commissioner Gary Griffith said he would not do so since it would be irresponsible of him. No arrest has been made in the two incidents.