May 12, 2002 – A shooting on Brookman Road, another on Garden Street and a third in Mariendahl left three persons dead Sunday.
Two of the victims were males 19 and 20 years old. The third was a woman.
The three apparently unrelated killings brought the total number of homicides for this year to 12 for St. Thomas and 17 for the whole territory. At this time last year, there had been four killings on St. Thomas and 10 territorywide.
The violence had police cars, marked and unmarked, racing with sirens blaring across St. Thomas Sunday night. Two police officers with guns drawn formed a makeshift roadblock at the western end of Valdemar Hill "Skyline" Drive.
Police received a call at 5:58 p.m. of the first shooting, at the Cock Pit on Brookman Road. Upon arrival they found 20-year-old Irad Frett Jr. dead of a single gunshot to the back, according to Deputy Chief of Police Theodore Carty.
Frett's body was found next to a trash bin behind the former Aqui Me Quedo, a whorehouse turned grocery store, adjacent to the Cock Pit.
Although there were numerous witnesses at the cockfights taking place at the time of the shooting, Carty said late Sunday night, no one had come forward with information, and police had no motive for or suspects in the killing.
Just over an hour later, at 7:12 p.m., 41-year-old Dariel Wheatley was shot as she exited Forde's Laundromat on Commandant Gade, also known as Garden Street. Wheatley was found slumped over the steps "of a white building," Carty said, with a single gunshot to her right chest.
"We don't think she was the intended victim," he said. A Monday afternoon release from the Police Department stated that Wheatley was struck "when a gray four-door Honda drove by and shots were fired from the vehicle."
Wheatley, who was reported in serious condition when she was taken to Roy L. Schneider Hospital, died there around 11 p.m.
At 11:25 p.m., police were called to the Mariendahl area, where four people had been struck by gunfire in what sources said may have been retaliation for the April 28 fatal stabbing near the Carnival Children's Village of Alliston Francis Jr., 17. According to police, Kintoy Charles, 19, died of multiple gunshot wounds on the way to the hospital.
The other three victims, identified by police as Wendell Green, 18, Peter Toussaint, 19, and Shalom Francis, 17, were treated at the hospital for their wounds. All four were fired upon while in the Mariendahl area, the police release stated.
Police asked that anyone with information about any of the three cases call 715-5522 or the Investigations Bureau at 715-5546 or emergency 911.
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