AGONY

Nearby, the body of her father Terry Edwards lay on the roadway, bleeding from multiple bullet wounds. Another man, Kevin Fuller, also lay nearby after he too was shot dead. Meanwhile, at San Fernando General Hospital, a third victim of the shooting incident, Sanjay Mahabir, stopped breathing and was pronounced dead.

In one fell swoop, gunmen ended the lives of the three and left their respective families reeling in agony. Police sources said the gunmen came gunning specifically for Fuller, but in spraying the area with bullets shot dead Edwards and Mahabir while a fourth victim escaped after being shot in the hand.

At the scene, Thursday night, Kerry was inconsolable as she sat on the road near her father’s body.

“Oh God daddy, why they do you this,” the child wailed, while nearby, her dazed brother Isaiah, 11, looked on. Their mother Ann Marie Khadoo sobbed as she pondered a future without her common- law husband.

Fuller, 31, was a scrap iron dealer who lived at Naparima Mayaro Road in Palmyra.

Edwards lived in Wellington Gardens, Debe while Mahabir, an off-shore worker lived at Serenity Heights in Debe.

Daniel Che Ching, 19, of Debe was shot in the hand and remains warded in stable condition. They were all liming at the Runway 69 Shorts bar in Debe when for Fuller, Edwards and Mahabir, death came calling at 7.30 pm.

Two gunmen ran into the bar with guns blazing in the direction of Fuller, who was hit multiple times and died at the scene.

Edwards who attempted to flee, was shot and collapsed on the roadway where he died. Mahabir was outside the bar speaking to his wife via his cellular phone when on hearing the gunshots, he tried to reach his car, but was shot several times and collapsed.

The killers, police said, escaped in a vehicle which was parked nearby along another street. Investigators have since obtained video footage from two surveillance cameras at the bar. Nineteen bullet casings were retrieved at the scene.

Kerry, on hearing that her father had just been shot, ran all the way from her home to the scene and collapsed on the road, near his body. She kept begging her father to get up and come home with her.

Fuller’s mother Joanne Fuller, his girlfriend Stacy Gumbs and others were also inconsolable at the scene.

Mahabir’s parents Harripersad Mahabir, 77, and Jean Mahabir, 74, struggled to come to terms with the loss of their only son. “Nah man this have to be a dream,” Mrs Mahabir kept saying as she shook her head at the family’s Rock Road, Penal home.

“His wife went to Gulf City and he stopped off at the bar to wait for her. Why they shoot out my son’s life? He was innocent,” she cried.

At the Fuller residence in Palmyra, mother Joanne Fuller said the blood of her son and that of the other two victims, are dripping from the hands of a woman whom she accused of ordering the Thursday night ‘hit’ as revenge for the shooting death of a male relative three years ago. Joanne insisted her son had nothing to do with the death of that woman’s relative.

In Wellington, Debe an unemployed Khadoo yesterday said her husband Terry had no known enemies and she now faces a bleak and lonely future.

She said daughter Kerry who celebrated her 14th birthday on Carnival Monday, is scheduled to undergo surgery next month.

The teen told Newsday her father had promised to purchase a pair of Puma slippers for her birthday yesterday.

“Why did they have to kill my dad,” she asked yesterday. Edwards’s stepdaughter Jamie Lezama, 21, said he was a father any child would want. No arrest has been made and visiting the scene were Supt Pragg, ASPs Ali and Mohammed, Insps Don Gajadhar and Figaro, W/Sgt Cuffy and Cpl Beckles.