THE relative of a man who was gunned down on Friday night along with his best friend is hailing him as a hero who died while ensuring the gunman could not shoot his mother as well.

Speaking at the Forensic Science Centre on Monday the woman, who asked not to be named, said Deon Morris was a hero. The relative said she was supposed to be at Morris' home at the time he was gunned down, but opted that night to stay home.

“That could have been us. He died protecting his mother. He was trying to close the door and lock it when the gunman came. He had room to run and probably could have gotten away but he decided to stay and lock the door knowing his mother was inside and vulnerable,” the relative said.

Police reported that around 10.40 pm on Friday 34-year-old Morris of Riverside Road, St Joseph and his best friend Sade Joseph, 34, also of Riverside Road, were found bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds outside his home.

Police said the two were taken to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope but were pronounced dead on arrival. Morris and Joseph were childhood friends and she recently moved into an apartment in the area.

[caption id="attachment_1001036" align="alignnone" width="265"] GUNNED DOWN: Akeem Pegus[/caption]

Morris’s relative said Joseph never got the opportunity to sleep in her new apartment as she was spending the night at Morris’s.

“He had no children and was his mother’s first of five children. He was not known for doing anything or being in anything. This whole thing is shocking,” the relative said.

In an unrelated killing, a Jamaican national killed on Friday night has been identified as Akeem “Jammy” Pegus.

Police said around 10.15 pm, they received a report of gunshots at a house on Francis Lane, Second Trace, Tunapuna. When they arrived they found the 23-year-old man slumped over the armrest of a chair.

A relative of Pegus, who asked to remain anonymous, said he tried guiding him away from a life of criminality, "but he just did not listen.”

Pegus, the relative said, was brought to Trinidad by his father 12 years ago and later fell in with the wrong crowd.

“I tried to instil in him to eat little and live long. Not to try and go out there and get it fast, because any time you get it fast, it doh last,” the relative said. No arrests have been made in any of these murders.