By INDARJIT SEURAJ Tuesday, December 8 2009

THE stabbing death of a man described by police as a known gangster earlier this year, is believed to have been behind a shooting incident yesterday which claimed the life of a woman and left her common-law husband hospitalised in critical condition.

Police said that Jacqueline Jones, 51, was asleep next to her husband Cosmos Modeste, 54, at their 11th Avenue, Barataria home when at about 3 am, gunmen climbed through a space near the ceiling, above some burglar-proof bars and sneaked into the house. Moments later, they shot the sleeping couple at point blank range, before fleeing the scene.

Jones was subsequently pronounced dead-on-arrival at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital while Modeste remains warded fighting for life.

Investigators told Newsday they are working on the theory that the shooting stemmed from an incident earlier this year, when two male relatives of the couple were held up by a known gangster and they (the two men) stabbed the gangster in self-defence. The gangster subsequently died.

The couple’s male relatives, police said, moved out of their home at 11th Avenue after receiving death threats. Modeste was shot on the right side of his chest and Jones was shot in her chest and legs.

At the Forensic Science Centre in St James a female relative of Jones said she was clueless as to who wanted Jones and Modeste dead. “That’s the million-dollar question,” stated the relative who asked not to be identified.

“The criminals are in charge. They selling guns and drugs and the police can’t do anything about it,” she said. She added that citizens were no longer safe at home. “Innocent people are dying. You are no longer safe in your own home.” Detective Cpl Neville Arcia, WPC Wallen and PC Binder visited the scene together with Homicide Bureau officers. No arrests have been made.