Tunapuna resident: Gang leader wanted to recruit teen murder victim

There are suspicions that the murder of 41-year-old Dawn Teshera McKenna, her son Jordan McKenna, 19 and family friend Jeremiah Assing, 18, may have been related to attempts to recruit the younger McKenna into a life of crime.

The trio were shot dead on Wednesday morning as they arrived at a piece of land off the Arima Old Road, Arima, where they grew crops.

Speaking with Newsday at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, on Friday, a Tunapuna resident who was close to the family said he remembered McKenna as an obedient young man who did what he was told by family members.

He said a crime figure repeatedly asked McKenna to join a gang, but he resisted, and suspects this defiance may have been the cause of the murders.

"Everybody know how this goes when you're out here. When people who call themselves 'boss' like they are God want you under their wing and you don't want any part of it, this is what happens.

"That was terrible. It was really terrible...all that death in one village."

The resident said the tragedy devastated the community.

Newsday also spoke to Assing's mother, Helen Assing, who said her son made mistakes, but was not a bad person, and described the murders as gruesome.

"I'm just happy my son was not a wicked person who was living violently out there. He worked hard for everything he had. He would wake up early every morning and go to work."

Homicide investigators said there were no arrests in any of the murders up to Friday afternoon.

Police Commissioner Gary Griffith declined to comment on the murders.