WESTERN BUREAU – In the dead of night Friday, three gunmen pounced on a couple in the quiet district of Long Pond, Trelawny, killing the man and leaving his female companion for dead.

Police said Winston Blair, 43, head of the Technical Department at the Muschette Comprehensive High School in Trelawny, was shot dead and the woman shot and wounded after they were surprised by the gunmen at around 2:30 am. The woman was not identified.

According to the police, the couple was sitting in an Isuzu pick-up truck on the Long Pond to Daniel Town main road when they were approached by three men armed with guns. The men demanded the vehicle and when their demand was not met, they opened fire, the police said.

Blair reportedly drove off and lost control of the vehicle, which later crashed into the road embankment.

The gunmen reportedly pulled him and his companion from the vehicle and shot Blair several times. They later took the frightened woman into a waiting Toyota Corolla motor car to Daniel Town – a nearby community – where she was shot and thrown out of the vehicle.

Cops said she was later found by the police and taken to hospital where she was admitted in a serious but stable condition.

As news of Blair’s death circulated in the Long Pond and neighbouring communities early yesterday, scores of residents gathered at the murder scene and expressed their disgust at the shootings.

John Williams, a resident of Spicy Hill, where the deceased lived, was among the first group of persons to arrive at the death scene.

He described Blair, whom he said he had known for more than 30 years, as a “very easy-going person” who did not deserve to die in that fashion.

“Blair was very much involved in sports and farming and went about his business in a peaceful and decent manner,” Williams said, fighting back the tears.

“The whole community will miss him,” added Williams.

A senior teacher at the school where Blair taught for more than 14 years, told the Sunday Observer that he would be sadly missed by the entire school population.

“The whole school fraternity will miss him very much,” the senior teacher said at the death scene. “He was a strict disciplinarian and one who commanded a lot of respect.”

Shortly before 11:00 am yesterday when the Sunday Observer visited the Blair’s Spicy Hill residence about one mile from where he was brutally murdered, scores of residents were seen expressing words of encouragement to the bereaved family.

“Bwoy, it ruff but keep up; mi know him no deserve fi dead so,” an elderly resident said, as she hugged Blair’s younger brother, Vincent.

Vincent, while expressing shock at his brother’s death, said he would have preferred if he was killed in an accident.

“To see my brother die that way is really, really terrible because I wasn’t expecting him to die that way,” he said with teary eyes.

Another family member said that Blair had left for St Ann on Friday to participate in a school’s cricket competition.

“Shortly before midnight he called his 14 year-old son and told him that he was in Runaway Bay and that he was not to go to bed before he gets home,” the family member said. “That was the last time we heard from him,” she added.

Blair joined the teaching staff at Muschette Comprehensive High School in 1989 and was elevated to department head nearly a year ago. He is survived by his wife and four children.