Psychiatric nurse, friend murdered in Grande
about 1 year in TT News day
A psychiatric nurse was among four people killed in separate incidents between Saturday evening and early Sunday morning 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 rang out.
Residents alerted the police and when they responded, they found Salandy and Lucas lying in the road, suffering from 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 did confirm that she was a nurse at St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital. Relatives said they did not have much information and they 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 Police Station CID responded to a report of a shooting at Kangalee Street, Valencia at approximately 12.47 am on Sunday. When they arrived, 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 also wounded in the incident.
When Newsday visited Best’s relatives in Valencia, his younger brother John Best said he was questioning the circumstances around his death.
He was told that Best went to a wake with a friend and was allegedly 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 that he was ambushed by the gunmen. He believed that the killers 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 Saturday evening, Jameel James, a labourer of Chandy Lane, El Socorro Road, San Juan, was found dead in Morvant.
Police said they got the report of the shooting and arrived at about 6.35. When they got there, they found James lying dead in some bushes with gunshot wounds to his head. A dark grey Hyundai Tuscon was found near his body. The car had several bullet holes in the driver’s side.
Police have listed gang activity as the possible motive behind James’ death.
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