Friend killed at wake

Dead is 33-year-old Troy James, of Pranz Gardens, Claxton Bay.

According to police reports, at about 11pm, James was walking along 5th Street, Pranz Gardens when he was approached by a lone gunman. Reports said that the man pointed a gun at James and shot him several times in the chest. He died on the spot outside the house where Sankar’s wake was held. James lived a short distance from where Sankar’s decomposing body was found along 5th Street, Pranz Gardens on Saturday morning.

Sankar was found dead by his parents after being reportedly missing for a week. Newsday learnt that on the day Sankar disappeared he was seen conversing with James at his (Sankar’s) home. It is uncertain if the two killings are linked to each other.

Speaking to Newsday yesterday, James common-law wife Judia John said that her husband and Sankar were friends. She said that the two would often meet to catch crabs in the village. “My husband left home on Saturday night and said he was going to the Sankar’s wake nearby and that was the last time I saw him alive,” she recalled. She said that last year on two occasions her husband was attacked by a group of men which stemmed from a dispute over land. “The first time he was walking the road when a group of men ambushed him but he fought back and was able to run.

The fight in this area is always over land,”she said. John said that on the second occasion her husband was walking along the roadway when a driver attempted to ‘run him off the roadway’. James also managed to escape unharmed.

“I don’t know if these ncidents have anything to do with my husband’s murder and I also don’t know if the murders of my husband and his friend, Sankar are linked, I really don’t’know,”she said.

The emotional mother said that James was the sole breadwinner of their family and the father of their three-year-old daughter. James had two other children from a previous relationship.

Nearby at the home of Sankar, family members expressed difficulty coping with his death. Sankar’s father, Sham said that already dealing with the murder of his son, the murder of another villager also shocked him. “Imagine I am in the wake of my son then I hear loud explosions and then you see all these people who were on the road for the wake just running coming inside your house,” he recalled.

Sham said that minutes later the body of a man identified as Troy James with bullet wounds to his body was found on the roadway.

Autopsies on the bodies of James and Sankar are expected to be performed today at the Forensic Science Centre, St James. Homicide Investigations Bureau Region III are continuing investigations into the killings.