Moruga father of 7 shot dead during fireside cook

Apart from processing the death of her children’s father Carlon Roberts, Jelaline Cruickshank is also struggling to figure out a way forward to care for their seven children.

A construction worker, Newsday understands 43-year-old Roberts was doing renovations on a house near his home on Saunders Trace in St Mary’s Village, Moruga, on Saturday.

After he finished work, Roberts dropped off his tools at home shortly before 3 pm and went to talk with friends who were making a fireside cook at a popular liming spot in front his home.

A short time later, at 3 pm, a Nissan vehicle approached the group and a gunman opened fire.

Roberts died on the spot, just one month before his 44th birthday on April 26.

Three other men – Damian Marshall, Kadeem Quash and Newman Mohammed – were wounded and rushed to the San Fernando General Hospital for treatment. Marshall and Quash are brothers.

Officers from the Barrackpore and San Fernando Police Stations went to the scene.

When Newsday visited on Sunday, the pot the men were cooking in was still there and candles were placed around blood which marked the spot where one of the men were shot.

Cruickshank told Newsday, “I do not know what happened but we just heard something like firecrackers and that was it.”

Overcome with grief, a bewildered Cruickshank stared into the distance as she worried about the future of the couple’s seven children including three girls (three months, 11 and 16) and four boys (four, eight, 14 and 15).

Cruickshank said Roberts was the home’s breadwinner.

One of the couple’s children is preparing to write this year’s Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) examinations.

Her close relative, who did not want to be named, interjected, “She’s going crazy. You know what it’s like to live with seven children – one daughter writing CXC and the last one is three months old – but you do not know where your next dollar is coming from?

“Right now we clueless because it’s not one or two (children) but seven.

“If a brick did fall on him and he died, I would have accepted that. If he did drink rum and did fall down in a drain, I would have accepted that.”

The relative said Roberts had no known issues with anyone. While he loved drinking alcohol, the relative said he always came home to sleep if he drank and was never disruptive. She added that he kept to himself.

Protective of Roberts’s children, the relative said she is traumatised to know such a brazen act took place at the liming spot where children often played as well.

They pondered, “A man come and shoot up the place and we don’t know what all of it is about. So yes, I am fearful for the children’s lives and his girlfriend because we don’t know if anyone would come back. We don’t know what all this is about.”

A co-worker of Roberts and Quash, who did not want to be named and did not witness the murder, was still in shock given that he worked with the two just moments before the shooting.

He recalled, “He (Roberts) came to drop his tools, walked back down the hill to get something and that was it. We had now, now, now done finished working.

“One of the gentlemen who was shot (Kadeem) was also working with us and that’s the one that’s critical in hospital.

“Whole day we were laughing and talking…whole day. We sit down and were talking about how we were going to finish the roof (on the house we were working on).”

He described Roberts as a very dedicated father who would have “borrow money to make sure his children ate.”

He stressed, “That’s what he was going to do…me ain’t say thief eh, borrow. He was going and work this morning (Sunday), he was going and run a next hustle this morning.”

Describing the community as family oriented, everyone told Newsday they were now on the edge.

However, they thanked the police for their quick response after the shooting and commended the investigating officers for being friendly and helpful.

Newsday attempted to speak with the mother of the injured men but relatives said she was fine and did not want to speak.

No arrests have been made. The Homicide Investigations Bureau (Region III) is continuing investigations.