Four charged in murders of Tunapuna men

Ralph Ban­warie

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.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors al­lege that the vic­tims plead­ed for their lives be­fore they were killed. Po­lice be­lieve the bod­ies were then placed in the trunk of a white Nis­san ve­hi­cle, which was set on fire. The bod­ies were burnt be­yond recog­ni­tion.

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.

The sus­pects are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Mas­ter of the High Court on Mon­day.

Sources 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 off M.I. Trace, El So­cor­ro.

Po­lice re­port­ed­ly went to the Tu­na­puna mar­ket in search of the sus­pect but she was not found there. Of­fi­cers lat­er went to her home, where she was ar­rest­ed.

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 p.m., 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.

On Mon­day, po­lice and mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team, led by Sham­sudeen Ayube, dis­cov­ered a burnt ve­hi­cle along Tapana Road, Old Va­len­cia Road.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors found the charred re­mains of two peo­ple in the trunk of the ve­hi­cle. Rel­a­tives lat­er iden­ti­fied the bod­ies as Gill and Ma­habir.

Au­top­sies con­duct­ed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre on April 30 were un­able to de­ter­mine the caus­es of death be­cause of the con­di­tion of the re­mains. In­ves­ti­ga­tors lat­er clas­si­fied the mat­ter as mur­der.