South Oropouche man killed outside home

(With reporting by LAUREL WILLIAMS)

POLICE are investigating the murder of Aaron Lallan, 26, who was gunned down outside his South Oropouche home on the night of February 3.

Hours later, when Newsday visited the family home on February 4, a relative who asked to remain anonymous, said she was having a bath at about 9.30 pm when she suddenly heard gunshots.

"I hear a shot so I take off the water, to listen properly to see if I heard it a second time. I heard a second shot. I say to myself, 'nah, dat is gunshots.' Then I hear a third one and same time I see a relative running nearby."

She said she hid behind a barrel of water near the bathroom.

After the sounds subsided she said her niece, Lallan's wife, began crying and saying she couldn't reach him (by phone). The relative said she dried herself off, put on some clothes and went outside, later finding Lallan's body on the ground next to his car. He was bleeding from gunshot wounds.

She said she did not know why someone would target him.

"Right now we traumatised. He's young. Next week would have been his birthday. He would have turned 27. He had a one-year-old daughter and it real hard right now. I don't know how we would cope."

She said the family feels unsafe because of the crime situation in the country.

"We thought the crime was going down but it seems to be rising because watch how innocent people getting kill. They (criminals) don't realise that some people have family."

She was unable to say if Lallan received any threats recently.

However, police said that their investigations so far revealed he was threatened in the early part of 2024 by someone he knew and someone shot at him in December.

Police said Lallan was also arrested and charged last month during state of emergency operations for possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Lallan's relative admitted she knew he had a run-in with the law last month but said she was not aware of what the charge was.

Lallan was pronounced dead at the scene by a district medical officer and his body was removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James for autopsy.

Crime scene investigators retrieved five spent nine-millimetre casings and one live round. No arrest has been made.