65 murders in 33 days ­–2 double murders in 8 hours

THE sound of automatic gunfire shattered the night-time silence in Chinapoo, Morvant, when two men were gunned down early on Thursday morning.

Police said residents of Crow Trace in Chinapoo, heard the gunshots at around 2.30 am, and on checking, saw the bodies of 35-year-old Dwayne Danglad aka "Home Alone" and Kody Robles, 30, on the road.

Police from the North Eastern Division Task Force visited the scene with officers from the Morvant CID and the Homicide Bureau of Investigations Region II. A district medical officer also visited and signed the order for the bodies to be removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James for autopsies.

This was one of two double murders which occurred within an eight-hour space between Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning.

Up to press time, there have been 65 murders in the 33 days of this year. For the same period last year, 57 people were killed. For this year so far, eight double-murders have been committed.

When Newsday visited Chinapoo on Thursday, crime scene investigators were photographing the area where Danglad and Robles fell.

As police continued their enquiries, parents walked their children to the nearby Chinapoo Government Primary School.

Two tow trucks had to be used to remove two cars which were riddled with bullets by the killers during the attack.

Newsday spoke with Danglad's mother, Ingrid Danglad, at her Wallace Road home which is mere metres away from where her son was killed.

Danglad who is a diabetic, had her left leg amputated last May and uses a wheelchair to get around. She said she was in bed at around 2 am when she heard the gunshots.

She immediately began calling relatives to find out where her son was at the time, only to learn later that he was one of the men killed in the attack.

Danglad said while she remembers her son as a loving man, she admitted he was involved in illegal activities.

"I'm not them mothers who say 'he was a good boy.' I used to talk to my son, but how much you could talk? It's you (the child) who have to listen in the end.

"I used to tell him to watch yourself, watch your back, you know they don't like you. My child was no saint, he was in thing.

"He couldn't work as they always had threats against him, he couldn't work anywhere. I tired try with he and he too tired try."

Danglad said it was not the first time gunmen shot at her son, recalling an incident on Indian Arrival Day in 2013, when they attacked him at the family's home in Morvant. "He had to jump through one of these windows and end up in a canal, where he escaped. His father who lives on the next side, he was shot in his foot.

"Another time he was in a party and came home with his wife's car to collect something, it's a good thing she wasn't there because they shot behind him again. I can't remember the year that happened."

Relatives said Danglad was living in Sea Lots for some time before his murder and was only in the area as he had come to visit family.

Danglad said she was deeply hurt over her son's murder as he would always look after her especially after losing her leg. "Dwayne used to come and say 'mammy, let me rub your foot,' he would stand up for me and get others to help me.

"I am missing a great help, he might not have been able to give me what I want but he gave me love and attention, that is what my child gave me."

Danglad was the father of five children, one of whom lives in England while the other four live in the US.

Another relative said she remembered Danglad as a pleasant person who had problems with the law, but was not involved in violence.

She said Danglad was not in any gang and found it difficult to find work as any job he wanted to do would involve him having to venture into different neighbourhoods controlled by different gangs whose trigger-happy members brooked no outsiders.

"He used to work URP but he couldn't move around as the ABG, the Sixx and the Seven gangs all operate in different but neighbouring territories.

"Everybody knows Chinapoo is a Seven gang area, so it doesn't matter if you're in the gang or not, you still can't venture into certain places," said the relative who asked not to be identified.

At the Forensic Science Centre, a relative of Robles insisted Kody was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The relative said Robles was from Sea Lots and took a PH job to drop Danglad off in Morvant when the attack happened.

"That is what hotting meh meh head, he was just a driver. He just went to drop off a man and I don't know what happened after, that's all the information I got. My brother was from Sea Lots," the man said.

"If a man asks for a little drop, or a ride, he would give someone a ride."

Eight hours earlier, on Wednesday afternoon, 18-year-old Kendell Joseph Francis and his brother-in-law Marlon Clarke, 28, were gunned down in Cuche Village, Biche when they tried to intervene in an incident in which a relative of Francis was being beaten.

Police said Francis' relative was beaten by a man who demanded money owed to his (the man) wife. When Francis and Clarke tried to intervene, they were both gunned down.

Editor's Note: This story was updated and the original version can be read below.

TWO MEN SHOT DEAD

IN MORVANT AMBUSH

TWO men were gunned down in a shooting early on Thursday morning.

Police said residents of Crow Trace, Chinapoo, Morvant reported that they heard gunshots at around 2.20 am and called the police.

Officers of the North Eastern Division Task Force found the bodies of 30-year-old Cody Robley and 35-year-old Dwayne Danglade on the street.

Newsday visited the scene as crime scene investigators took photos of bullet holes in several vehicles that were parked at the side of the street.

Two vehicles were removed by tow trucks for analysis by investigators from the Special Evidence Recovery Unit, at Cumuto

No motive was established for the murders.

A team of police from the Morvant CID and the Homicide Bureau of Investigations Region II are investigating.