After abuse, friends say woman withdrew before Ghany’s killing

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

A woman held in con­nec­tion with the fa­tal shoot­ing of Steve Solomon Ghany Ju­nior re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to Thurs­day morn­ing but had not yet giv­en a for­mal state­ment to in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

Po­lice sources said a record­ed state­ment is ex­pect­ed af­ter the com­ple­tion of a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion, which was sched­uled to be con­duct­ed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.

Ghany Jr, 37, of Alexan­der Road, Vista­bel­la, San Fer­nan­do, was shot and killed around 10 am on Wednes­day af­ter a con­fronta­tion with a fe­male rel­a­tive at his home. Po­lice said the li­censed firearm used in the in­ci­dent was hand­ed over to in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were told the woman re­port­ed act­ing in self-de­fence af­ter Ghany al­leged­ly threat­ened to kill her and her two daugh­ters, aged four and nine.

Mul­ti­ple gun­shots were heard dur­ing the in­ci­dent, and Ghany sus­tained sev­er­al wounds to the chest. He was pro­nounced dead at the scene.

A close fam­i­ly friend told Guardian Me­dia that the woman had en­dured years of abuse and had grad­u­al­ly with­drawn from her so­cial cir­cle over the past year.

“She start­ed pulling away from every­body,” the friend said, de­scrib­ing a no­tice­able change in her be­hav­iour.

The woman, a moth­er of two young daugh­ters, is said to have be­come in­creas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed, with those close to her ex­press­ing con­cern about her well-be­ing in the months lead­ing up to the in­ci­dent.

An em­ploy­ee at the house re­port­ed hear­ing sev­er­al gun­shots at the time of the shoot­ing.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, the two chil­dren, now trau­ma­tised, were tak­en to stay with rel­a­tives.

Po­lice al­so con­firmed that sev­er­al weapons were seized from the fam­i­ly’s home as part of the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Friends and rel­a­tives of the woman de­scribed Ghany as abu­sive and said the re­la­tion­ship had been marked by on­go­ing do­mes­tic prob­lems.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­tin­u­ing to piece to­geth­er the cir­cum­stances that led to the fa­tal en­counter.

Just days be­fore his death, Ghany had re­port­ed­ly met with Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der at a ri­fle range, where they en­gaged in recre­ation­al shoot­ing.

The killing adds to a his­to­ry of vi­o­lence af­fect­ing the Ghany fam­i­ly.

In De­cem­ber 2024, his step­moth­er, Mon­i­ca Ghany, was shot and killed while dri­ving along La­dy Hailes Av­enue in San Fer­nan­do af­ter vis­it­ing her ail­ing hus­band, Steve Ghany Snr.

Her son, Matthew, Ghany Jr’s step­broth­er, was al­so in­jured in that at­tack but sur­vived.

Po­lice said the woman re­mains in cus­tody as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.