Murders in Couva, Claxton Bay

YVONNE WEBB and JENSEN LA VENDE

POLICE are investigating two murders in the Southern Division after one man was gunned down in Couva on Tuesday night and another killed in Claxton Bay Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday businessman Daniel Eversely, a father of a two-year-old girl, was shot dead as he opened his car wash and poultry shop sometime after 7 am.

Reports say that shots were heard at about 7.45 am, reverberating throughout the quiet community of Claxton Bay. Eversely, who turned 33 on April 1, was later found bleeding from bullet wounds to the head, near a water tank.

In a video circulating on social media on Wednesday, a bleeding but still-alive Eversely can be seen lying on the ground against a concrete wall, repeatedly calling out a name that sounds like "Donna." A person seems to respond to him by saying, "I'm coming," then, "Yeah...I'm right here."

Eversely was eventually taken to the San Fernando General Hospital, where he was declared dead.

His cousin Tessa Smith, who arrived after the body was removed, told the Newsday she had no idea who would want him dead.

“All I know is that I went to drop one of my daughters to school when I got a video from someone, asking if this was my cousin. At the same time, I received a call from my brother, and he told me where it happened.

"When I went to Claxton Bay, police had already removed the body. They told us to come to identify the body.”

Smith, who is Eversely's oldest cousin, said she was viewed as the maternal figure in the family.

She had no idea if he was threatened or involved in any criminal activity.

“Even if anything was happening, they would not let me know. I stay away from those things. "His mother died more than a year ago from covid and his father lives in England. He was the youngest of three siblings and had a two-year-old daughter. He was not married, but had a girlfriend.”

"All I can say is that we have to be careful, know who we are affiliated with."

She said Eversely was supposed to join the rest of his cousins to celebrate her daughter’s 20th birthday later on Wednesday.

“All of the family were coming over by me this evening to celebrate my daughter’s birthday” she said adding now the family will meet to discuss what happened and make funeral arrangements.

Eversley was one five people murdered between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, hours after the end of a two-day Caricom crime symposium held in Port of Spain.

The second murder was that of Roystonia resident Darius Cooper.

A 32-second video showed a man with a white bandana on his face, come out of a white car, approached Cooper as he sat on a bench at a carwash and shot him. Cooper, 23, ran and was chased by the killer who continued firing before getting back in the car which sped off. The recording placed the killing at about 9.35 pm on Tuesday night.

Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, a close female relative of Cooper, who asked not to be named, blamed herself for his death. The woman said minutes before the killing Cooper called her and had she picked up she would have advised him not to visit the car wash, which may have saved his life.

"Last time I actually talk to him it was after 4 and he give me chat saying 'I eh call him and tell him I was cooking'. He try calling me after 9 but I missed it. I keep saying to myself probably if I had heard it and tell him come home, this wouldn't have happened. I feel like it have so much on my shoulder, I could have prevented this" she sobbed.

She described Cooper as a fun-loving, charasmatic man who worked as a cargo handler at Plipdeco. She said there was nothing that she could think of that he could have done that warranted him being killed.

"When his mother called me, I thought it was an accident he was in because he does drive hard. So I thought it was that cause that was the only thing we would warn him about and tell him take his time on the road."

A male relative said Cooper was told by his mother not to go out as he had work the next day and now she too was blaming herself for his death, thinking she could have done more.