Elaine McGowan, a 65-year-old British woman and former landlady of the Castle Hotel in Saltwood, Kent, was shot dead earlier this month outside her elderly uncle's home in Trincity, Trinidad, in what investigators are treating as a targeted "gangland hit". She had been hoping to relocate to Trinidad permanently and take over her late father's coconut farming business, but instead became the victim of a calculated attack that has stunned communities on both sides of the Atlantic, prompting questions over whether the killing was linked to a dispute over her father's will or to tensions surrounding the business.

CCTV footage shows a gunman getting out of a white Nissan Tiida on a quiet Sunday morning, firing three shots, then fleeing with an accomplice. Sources close to the investigation told the Daily Mail that McGowan was deliberately shot in the leg rather than a typically fatal spot, severing her femoral artery; the theory is that the attack was intended to frighten her into leaving the country rather than to kill her outright, but she bled to death before help could save her. Her husband, Ian, 64, and her 96-year-old uncle witnessed the shooting but were unable to intervene.