Mother of murdered student: He was used as shield

Less than an hour after he met his mother at a St James taxi stand and promised to come home as soon as possible, 19-year-old engineering student Tyrel Webster Thomas was gunned down, along with Yuri Moses, 30, outside a grocery.

Thomas' mother Liesa Webster believes her son may have been used as a human shield by Moses, who was desperate to avoid the gunmen.

Police said they received a report of a shooting at the corner of the Western Main Road and Agra Street, St James, at around 8 pm on Friday and found Thomas and Moses bleeding.

Thomas was declared dead at the scene and Moses was declared dead on Saturday afternoon.

Theirs was the second of three double murders between Friday afternoon and Saturday night.

The first was the murders of brothers Raymond and Andy Weekes on Davis Street, Belmont, two hours earlier, and the third double murder was that of Randy Gopaul and Isaiah Esom in St Thomas Street, Tunapuna, on Saturday night.

Speaking with Newsday at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, Webster said she talked to her son shortly before his murder, when she met him at a taxi stand.

She said he had returned from getting a haircut and was waiting for a taxi to get to their Dundonald Hill home, but offered the last available seat to his mother.

"He told me to go ahead, as I was holding some bags. He said he would come up with the next taxi. I left and came home, but after about an hour I thought he was taking too long to get home, because usually he comes right behind me.

"The last thing I told him was to come home.

"He laughed and said, 'Yes, Liesa, oh God, woman, I coming.'

"I told him I was going to fry chicken for him that night. He said he was coming with his bag of snacks and juice and was on his way."

Webster said neighbours and other people in the area where the shooting happened told her Thomas got fed up of waiting for a taxi and walked to a nearby grocery to buy a bottle of water.

She said she was also told Moses was also in the grocery and walked out a short distance behind her son.

"When Yuri left the store, my son wasn't far behind. The gunmen came running at Yuri.

"Apparently Yuri saw the gunmen. My son had his headphones on and wasn't paying attention.

"The gunmen started to fire shots, Yuri started to run and grabbed him (Tyrel) and spinned him to use him as a human shield, so he ended up taking the majority of shots.

"Tyrel dropped but the gunmen chased after Yuri and finished him off.

"When it happened all of the snacks was scattered around his feet. The police gathered it up and handed it to me when they moved his body."

Webster said her son spent most of his time indoors and would only lime at select places with his friends. She said he was not involved in any criminal activities, and she often warned him about the danger of stray bullets in their neighbourhood.

"I used to tell them straight, once you hear shots, lock up the windows, lock up the doors and stay down.

"If I knew there were shootings in Belle Vue on the Thursday before, I would have told him not to walk up that road."

Thomas recently left St Mary's College, and wanted to become a mechanic. He was enrolled as a student of the University of Trinidad and Tobago's John Donaldson campus on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain.

Also speaking at the Forensic Science Centre, one of Moses' relatives, who asked not to be named, said she doubted that Thomas was used as a human shield, given the distance between their bodies.

"That is impossible. If I'm using you as a shield, I'm holding you in place so that means if I get shot I wouldn't be found too far from your body. But he died there and Moses was found across the street. That could never be a shield."

Moses' relative said he was shot two years ago and was very cautious about venturing outside at certain times.

She said he left home on Friday night to buy a punch.

The relative said the family was deeply saddened over Moses' murder and said his cousin Dennison Rodney was also murdered, in November, 2014.

Rodney, 42, was gunned down when he had an argument with another man after they got into an accident in Diego Martin.

"The system stinks.

"Every day it's young people dying. Some of them don't even have children to leave behind.

"This whole thing just gone haywire."

The Homicide Bureau of Investigations Region I is investigating the murders.