Psychiatric nurse, friend murdered in Grande

A psychiatric nurse was among four people killed in separate incidents between August 17 and August 18 in East Trinidad.

She has been identified as 36-year-old Sherayne Salandy. She was killed along with Kevin Lucas around 3 am on August 18.

Police reports said Salandy and Lucas were liming on the side of the road on Boodoo Highway in Sangre Grande when gunshots were heard.

Residents called the police and when they responded, they found Salandy and Lucas lying in the road with gunshot wounds. They both died shortly after police arrived.

Relatives of Salandy shied away from commenting when Newsday reporters visited Salandy’s home in La Horquetta. However, they confirmed she was a nurse at St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital.

Relatives said they did not have much information and were relying on social media reports for details.

“She was full of life,” said one relative.“We are just in the dark as everyone else.”

Hours earlier, 46-year-old David Best was shot dead while attending a wake.

Officers of the Valencia CID responded to a report of a shooting at Kangalee Street, Valencia at approximately 12.47 am on August 18. They found Best slumped over in a chair under a tree in a yard.

Police reports said two other people, a 41-year-old man from Farm Road, Curepe and a 30-year-old woman from San Juan were wounded in the incident.

When Newsday visited Best’s relatives in Valencia, his younger brother John Best said he was questioning the circumstances of his death.

He was told Best went to a wake with a friend and was sitting under the tree when gunmen came out of a nearby track and shot at the crowd, hitting Best several times and wounding the two others.

He believed Best was ambushed by the gunmen, who may have targeted him because of some of the people he associated with.

“The way he got shot, it couldn’t be that someone came and he saw them coming. It had to be someone who was close to him,” the relative said.

“I could say he got killed by association. If men see you driving out a man who is known as a gang member, and other gang members see you, sometimes the man who they come for, if they don’t see that man, whoever is there, they will kill.”

“Don’t tell me you come to shoot up a wake and only one man got shot nine times. That’s an assassination.”

He said Best’s father moved him to Valencia in 1996 from his original home in Trou Macaque because he constantly surrounded himself with people involved in gang activity.

“He started to lime with men up here but to say he picking up gun and riding for people, I don’t know about that.”

He said Best, now a taxi driver, led a group prayer session under the Orisha faith out of his Valencia home. “Every six-o-clock, he would lead the prayers,” he said.

At around 6.30 on August 17, Jameel James, a labourer of Chandy Lane, El Socorro Road, San Juan, was found dead in Morvant.

Police said they got a report of the shooting and arrived at about 6.35. They found James lying dead in some bushes with gunshot wounds to his head. A dark grey Hyundai Tucson was found near his body with several bullet holes in the driver’s side.

Police have listed gang activity as the possible motive behind James’s death.