Senior Reporter
sascha.wilson@guardian.co.tt
“I can’t take it no more,” cried 63-year-old Jean Subran while standing in front of the home of her son, Basdeo “Ricky” Lallan, who was shot dead together with his common-law wife on Thursday night.
As tears streamed down her cheeks, Subran lamented that she had suffered extreme emotional pain with the murder of her other son six years ago and her brother and teenage niece being gunned down last year.
Subran, a mother of eight and grandmother of 12, said around 9 pm she was home with her relatives when they heard loud noises like firecrackers.
She soon learnt that her son and daughter-in-law, who lived next door to her home, had been shot dead.
Relatives said after the gunman shot Lallan, 46, a scrap iron worker, and his common-law wife, Whitney Narine, 21, at their Teak Drive, Macaulay Road home. He turned the gun on the couple’s seven-month-old son and Lallan’s 17-year-old son. Fortunately, the gun did not discharge.
Subran’s brother Vishnu Lallan said the 17-year-old boy shielded the baby with his body as the gunman had turned the gun on them.
He said, “The gun started to snap when the man pulled the trigger on the 17-year-old, so that is why he was lucky to escape. Otherwise, he and the child would have died also. If the gun had gone off, the two children would have died too.”
After running from the house, the assailant entered a car that was parked on the shoulder along the Solomon Hochoy Highway at the back of the couple’s home.
Denying that the murders were drug-related, Subran said, “God, please, show me what to do; why this happened? I would like to know. I cannot have a happy time again. I have to live in jail. I have to lock my door with big locks the whole day and the whole night. I had enough. I don’t want my grandchildren to go down this road.” An emotional Vishnu said the couple lived happily together for almost three years and had planned to build a proper home for their children.
Lallan had three children, ages 22, 17 and 14, from a previous relationship, but the children’s mother died a few years ago. Narine, a labourer at the San Fernando City Corporation, also had a seven-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
December 6 will mark the sixth death anniversary of Subran’s other son, Narad “Neil” Narine, who was killed in his home by two men claiming to be police officers. A man has been charged with his murder. Last year, Subran’s niece Andrea Lallan, 13, and her paraplegic brother (Andrea’s uncle), Sylvan Lalla, were fatally shot in their Rio Claro home. Andrea’s father, Eddy, was also shot but survived.
