TWO men were shot dead metres apart from each other at Gem Road and Gem Crescent yesterday, as a feud between gangs based in sections of Maxfield Avenue in Kingston drags on.

One of the men has been identified as Christopher Eccles of a Waterford, St Catherine address, but the other man’s identity had not been determined by the police up to press time last night.

Another man, who was with Eccles at the time, was shot and injured and admitted to the Kingston Public Hospital after he turned up nursing gunshot wounds. Cops have not released his name.

A white Toyota Corolla motorcar, licenced PB 3646, was found beside Eccles’ body and is believed to have been driven by either him or the injured man. The car was towed away by police yesterday.

“We are not sure who the driver was so we are going to carry out forensic tests on the car,” Corporal Troy Anderson of the Constabulary Communications Network told the Observer.

Based on the sticker affixed to the cab, it was apparently licenced to ply the Spanish Town to Fairview Parkway, via St John’s Road.

Police say that at about 10:50 am yesterday, they responded to reports of gunfire in the area and when they arrived they saw the bodies of the two men. The Admiral Town police, who are investigating the murders, say they have not yet identified a motive for the killings.

But for the residents of Gem Road, the motive was clear. According to them, men from nearby Sunlight Street had come into the area with one intention – to kill.

Eccles and the man who was with him were not from the area but had come to visit a resident of the area when the killers pounced, the residents claim.

“This is the second taxi man them kill who just come check somebody around here. Them don’t even know why them get shot,” an onlooker at the death scene said yesterday.

One resident said the unidentified man was one of the men who had attacked Eccles and the other man who was wounded. The dead man was said to have been shot by his cronies as they escaped in the direction of Sunlight Street.

“Them come and shoot man in the area and when them a go back over, him friend dem shot him up and take away a gun that him did have,” one man said.

The body was clad in a purple merino, short blue jeans pants and a pair of black sneakers. Police estimate the dead man’s age at 25 years and report that his body measured five feet eight inches.

Yesterday, the dead man lay in a crumpled heap on Gem Crescent. Blood oozed from a wound to the back of his head and ants crawled out of a bullet wound on his left calf. He was also shot twice in the stomach, once in the right armpit and below the right elbow.

Around the corner on Gem Road, Eccles’ body lay beside the motorcar. He was also shot in the head and other parts of his body.

According to police sources, men from Sunlight Street and Fitzgerald Avenue had formed an alliance and were involved in a deadly feud with a gang comprised of men from Gem Road, Lincoln Avenue and an area off Maxfield Avenue known as “Rome”.

Residents in the area corroborate the police version and some say they are living in fear.

“Me can’t take it so me about to take my belongings and leave the area because them kill anybody them see and it no look like the war out fi done,” one woman said.

The residents told the Observer a peace march was held in the area last Thursday and when the human procession arrived at Sunlight Street, the men there vowed to keep fighting as they had not avenged the death of Craig Burbridge, said to be the don from Sunlight Street.

“The Sunrise man them say them not into any peace because the man them who kill Craig don’t dead yet,” one woman said.

Police say Burbridge was the don for Sunlight Street and was suspected of committing major crimes in Whitfield Town. Burbridge was buried just over two weeks ago after being shot and killed in the area in late July.