Princes Town man gunned down

A 32-year-old man was shot and killed out­side his home ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The vic­tim was iden­ti­fied as Xavier Brath­waite of St Julien Vil­lage, Princes Town.

Po­lice said around 2.50am, a rel­a­tive was in the liv­ing room of their home when she heard sev­er­al loud ex­plo­sions, and lat­er dis­cov­ered Brath­waite on the ground out­side bleed­ing from gun­shot wounds.

He was tak­en to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. Of­fi­cers of Homi­cide Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

—Sascha Wil­son

Four sus­pects have been ar­rest­ed and charged in con­nec­tion with the mur­ders of Ken­neth Gill and Bernard Ma­habir, whose bod­ies were found in the trunk of a burnt ve­hi­cle off Old Va­len­cia Road near­ly two weeks ago.

Po­lice sources told Guardian Me­dia the sus­pects in­clude two women, one of whom is a Tu­na­puna mar­ket ven­dor, and two men.

Po­lice sources said the four sus­pects have been in­ter­ro­gat­ed and state­ments were record­ed. The case file has since been for­ward­ed to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for ad­vice.

Po­lice said ev­i­dence gath­ered dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion points to the mar­ket ven­dor as the al­leged or­gan­is­er of the killings.

Of­fi­cers of the Arou­ca Homi­cide Bu­reau, Re­gion Two, made a break­through in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion on Mon­day, May 4, 2026, when the mar­ket ven­dor was ar­rest­ed at an apart­ment in El So­cor­ro.

Fol­low­ing her de­ten­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­duct­ed a se­ries of op­er­a­tions that led to the ar­rest of an­oth­er woman and two men in con­nec­tion with the mur­ders.

Re­ports stat­ed that Ma­habir, al­so known as “Sumir,” of Prescott Lane, Tu­na­puna, and Gill of Trinci­ty, were last seen alive on Sun­day, April 26, in Lopinot. Around 5 pm, they re­port­ed­ly left the area in a white Nis­san Ti­i­da, reg­is­tra­tion PCX 9805, dri­ven by Gill.

Rel­a­tives be­came con­cerned af­ter the men failed to re­turn home and could not be con­tact­ed by cell­phone. A miss­ing per­sons re­port was lat­er filed.

A day lat­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors found the charred re­mains of two peo­ple in the trunk of the ve­hi­cle. Rel­a­tives lat­er iden­ti­fied the bod­ies as Gill and Ma­habir.

—Ralph Ban­warie