The idiom “third time’s the charm” is usually for something pleasurable, not so for Curtis “Cash Money” Hazel who died after the third attempt on his life by gunmen.
The killers also took the life of his girlfriend and nearly claimed the life of his ten-year-old daughter.
According to police reports, Hazel, 36, a father of four; his girlfriend Nefertiti Burke, 19; and Hazel’s daughter Empress Hazel were driving along Plaisance Road, Laventille, around noon on Friday when gunmen from opposing Block 8 fired at them.
Young Empress survived after she, while seated in the back seat, pulled up the handbrakes of her father’s car, fled from the car and ran back to her grandmother’s Beverly Hills, Marcano Quarry, apartment.
Her father and stepmother were taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where Hazel died some six hours later and Burke, at 2 am yesterday.
The little girl, who lives in Tobago and journeyed to Trinidad to spend time with her grandmother and relatives, was grazed in the right knee and twisted her ankle during her dash to survive.
Speaking with the media at her home yesterday, Hazel’s mother Merle Prescod said her granddaughter has vowed never to return to her home.
“It have a man who was always threatening my son and saying he will kill him...is three times they tried to kill him you know, this is the third time” Prescod said.
Prescod, who still limps after breaking her leg last year while running away from indiscriminate shooting by gunmen, said she was mostly upset because the killers and their victims were once friends.
“My children was never in anything, I never even let them play with toy guns. If I see them with it I would mash it up” Prescod said.
The paternal grandmother of Burke, Jemma Noray, told reporters at her Plaisance Road, Laventille, home that her granddaughter was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Business Management at Roytec. She added that her granddaughter had put her schooling above everything else and was on her way to drop off resumes when she was shot.
“Yesterday morning she was standing right there and told me that she did not want to stay home and be bored because her last exam was Thursday. She left with resumes to drop it in different places to get work,” Noray said as she began weeping.