A 20-year-old Toco man who ignored his brother’s warnings was shot dead outside his home on Thursday night.
Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, Shaquille Wilson’s brother, Kodie Francois, said he was “fed up” of speaking to his brother about his life choices and the friends he kept.
He said that his brother was “hardened” and was arrested on two occasions as a result of the choices he made and the company he kept.
“He was a normal brother, sprightly and jovial. I have no idea why anyone would want to kill him. It is probably because of the same bad company that he kept. I fed up talk to him about it. He even stayed with me for a while and I tried to get a job for him but he went back to Toco,” Francois said of his brother who was the baby in the family, being the last of seven children.
Francois added that the community of Toco, not known for violence, was becoming more urban and evincing the negative aspects of youth delinquency. He said he moved out of the area a long time ago and the village he knew then was different from the present one as “plenty of them youths on negative scene.”
According to police, around 10.45 pm, Wilson, who would have turned 21 next Saturday, was at his Anglias Road, Cumana, home when he was shot through a window as he spoke on his cell phone.
Wilson, who lived adjacent to his family, was later found bleeding by his sisters. He was taken to the Toco Health Centre but was pronounced dead on arrival. His killing has taken the murder toll to 51 for the year.
In an unrelated shooting death, the hunter killed on Wednesday night in the Mayaro Forest has been identified as Sheldon Rattan.
Rattan, 33, died after he was mistaken for a deer by his hunting partners Rampersad Maraj, 58, and Victor Mendoza, 45. According to police reports, Rattan and the men went approximately ten miles into the forest off the Gudron Oil Fields Guayaguayare, on Wednesday afternoon and set up camp.
Sometime during the hunt, one of the hunting dogs spotted a deer and began chasing it. One of Rattan’s friends fired at the deer, hitting Rattan once in the chest instead. The hunters left for help at 8 pm and arrived at the Mayaro Police Station around 5 am Thursday and alerted the police. Rattan’s body was removed some 12 hours later.