Killers hold gun to baby's head, shoot father

MASKED gunmen held a gun to a two-year-old girl's head before they killed her father in front of her at the family's home early on Thursday morning.

The gunmen shot dead Kelvin Arneaud, 30, in front of his wife and two daughters.

Arneaud was shot in the chest several times.

The killing happened at about 4 am at Old Train Line, St Margaret’s, near Claxton Bay.

The gunmen reportedly held their guns to the heads of th toddler and her 16-year-old sister before they killed their father.

A police report said Arneaud, his wife Nicole Smith and their two children were asleep when four masked men entered their home. Reports said the men broke down the front door.

The couple's younger daughter was sleeping with them and their 16-year-old daughter was asleep in another bedroom.

Reports said the men dragged the teen into her parents’ bedroom, where they shot and killed her father.

An emotional Smith told Newsday she woke to see masked men holding guns over her head and their bed, and two other men holding guns to her daughter’s head.

‘I could not believe it. I jumped up holding my baby. They were masked, so we could not see their faces. They were holding guns to my baby head and I and I could only hear them talking among themselves. One looked at the other and said they had to kill him now.

"I was screaming and crying. I was begging for our lives," she said.

Smith said they dragged her husband out of bed and shot him.

“They killed him in front of his children and I don’t know why.”

The couple also has two other children.

“These men took a father away from their children,” said Smith.

Arneaud was a construction worker. Investigators said he recently appeared in court on a burglary charge.

Counsellors from the police Victim Support Unit have been assigned to the children.

Homicide Region Three Police are investigating.