Dying man: Lord, have mercy on my soul!

“Lord, have mercy on my soul,” were the last words of Paul “Killa” Hopson, as he gave up the ghost, after he was shot in his right hip last week Saturday night, at a shop in the area of South Wood in the West St. George constituency.{{more}}

Hopson 23, of Fairhall, who was suspected of being part of one of the rivaling factions in the ongoing gang warfare in Paul’s Avenue, was sitting on a wall at the shop viewing a movie, when his own life became the focus of a real life movie scene.

The gunman reportedly showed up out of nowhere, shot Hopson in the back, and disappeared into thin air.

Hopson, SEARCHLIGHT is told, tumbled forward, saying, “Oh (expletive) I get shot,” before collapsing. He died a short while after, but not before his heavenly plea for mercy.

Police sources told SEARCHLIGHT that besides Hopson’s assumed involvement in the Kingstown gang warfare, there is no clear lead relating to the killing.

One well-placed source said the police were in fact “scratching for a motive”, and have been unable to question anyone of consequence thus far.

SEARCHLIGHT also learned that Hopson, a Trinidadian, had confided to a police officer that he was afraid for his life.

Another well-placed source also indicates that Hopson wanted to leave St Vincent.

Police recovered a spent 9mm shell at the scene of the crime.

The dead youth, who at one time was a passenger van conductor, was one of the main suspects in the first murder of the year, the January 6 shooting of 14-year-old Cheruice Trotman.

Trotman, of Arnos Vale, was shot once in the side of her head at Paul’s Avenue, when at around 12:45 a.m., she was leaving one house to go to another house in the same yard.

She died three days later at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.

Trotman left behind a then six-week-old baby girl.

No one has been arrested or charged in connection with her murder.