Last night at around 9:45, at the intersection of Fabers Road and Waight Street, two best friends, Kevin AKA “Head” Lino, 23, a security guard of Dangriga Town, and Kevin Cassanova, 26, another security guard, were fatally shot.
Initial reports are that Lino and Cassanova were exiting a car on Fabers Road when two armed men fired at them. Cassanova was shot in the back of the head and in the chest, while Lino was shot in the eye.
Both Lino and Cassanova were pronounced dead on arrival at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.
This morning, we visited the Cassanovas’ residence and spoke with his sister, Tyree Flowers, and an aunt who wished to remain anonymous.
Flowers said: “Kevin was a nice person, willing and hard working. He was mischievous in his own ways. A lot of people wanted him dead, but if he had a record, it was neither for murder nor theft. I can’t allege that he didn’t do anything wrong, but if he ever did, we don’t know him like that.”
Cassanova, a father of two, was working in Placencia with his friend, Kevin Lino, but came to visit the family at least once a month. On the night of the murder, the two were hanging out at Cassanova’s house and went with a friend to buy food in a vehicle. Upon returning to Cassanova’s house and exiting the vehicle, they were shot several times.
The unnamed friend cowered down in the vehicle, and was unhurt after the shooting stopped.
Cassanova’s aunt told us that she was behind the house in another structure when she heard six gunshots.
According to the aunt, Cassanova didn’t die on the spot, because after being shot, he ran up the four steps to the house, dashed through the living room and collapsed in front of another sister’s room.
While lying on the floor, he was moaning and gasping for air. The family observed that Cassanova was shot in the back of the head and in the middle of the chest. They tried to calm him, and a neighbor took him to the hospital, but on the way to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, he succumbed to his injuries.
At the time of our visit, police were talking to Cassanova’s mother. We tried to speak to her but she told us that she was too emotional to speak to the media, which could be understood, since she had lost a son, Ryan Young, similarly in 2008.
We also tried to get an interview with the police, but they refused to release any information.
In 2008, Ryan Young was murdered in the same fashion. This is what his sister Kimberly Cassanova said back in 2008: “When we put our brother down in the hole, we don’t have any more brothers to see [buried]. I love my brother with all my heart. I only have two brothers and they took one away from me, and I have one more.”
That one more brother referred to was Kevin Cassanova. An emotional Flowers told us that she has no more brothers and that they took away the only one she had left, and that now they have to look after Cassanova’s two children.
As for Lino, the son of Stann Creek Magistrate Clive Lino, an eyewitness tells Amandala that he fell in the middle of the street after being shot in the eye, and that he lay there for almost an hour before being taken by police to the KHMH.
Lino lived in Placencia and worked at the same resort as Kevin Cassanova. He was in the City visiting his sister and was scheduled to return to Placencia at 5:15 yesterday, when he was murdered.
We spoke to Lino’s sister, Nestra Lino, who told us that her brother had been at her home at around 9:30 that night. It was her boyfriend, Frank Magdaleno, who informed her of the shooting, and that it was not until Magdaleno reached the scene and identified the body that police were able to take the body away.
“My family is trying their best to cope with it. You can’t escape these things; it can come to anyone of us, and it did come to us. We are just hoping that the persons behind it don’t go unpunished,” Nestra said.