11-month-old, father killed in Dundonald Hill shooting

SHANE SU­PERVILLE

A St James fam­i­ly is griev­ing the loss of one of its youngest mem­bers af­ter an ear­ly morn­ing shoot­ing in Dun­don­ald Hill.

Po­lice said 25-year-old Joseph Sut­ton and his 11-month-old son Jay­den were asleep at their home around 1 am when their pet dog be­gan bark­ing. A rel­a­tive went to check the dis­tur­bance when a gun­man pushed a firearm through a bed­room win­dow and opened fire, hit­ting both fa­ther and son be­fore flee­ing on foot.

Both were tak­en by rel­a­tives to the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where they were pro­nounced dead short­ly af­ter.

In­stead of prepar­ing for her son’s first birth­day, Leona Allen is now mak­ing fu­ner­al arrange­ments for both her child and her com­mon-law hus­band.

Speak­ing at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, Allen said Sut­ton had been shot on March 16 and had re­cent­ly been dis­charged from hos­pi­tal. She said she be­lieved he may have been tar­get­ed out of en­vy over his small mi­ni-mart.

Allen said the fam­i­ly had dis­cussed leav­ing Dun­don­ald Hill as they felt their lives were in dan­ger.

Sut­ton’s fa­ther, Mag­nus Sut­ton, said he heard the dogs bark­ing fol­lowed by gun­shots. He al­so be­lieved the at­tack­ers dam­aged a near­by T&TEC light to avoid be­ing seen dur­ing their es­cape.