(Trinidad Express) A manhunt has been launched by officers of the Police Service for a wheelchair-bound man who was said to be the main suspect in the murder of 19-year-old Salma Chadee on Saturday night.
According to police reports, the teenager was at her home at Chadee Street, La Paille Village, Caroni, in the company of the wheelchair-bound man and other relatives.
At about 9.30 p.m. the group got into an argument, during which the suspected assailant was said to have pulled out a firearm, shooting Chadee several times in her upper left chest.
He then made good his escape in a vehicle which was waiting outside.
The police and emergency health services were notified. However, Chadee died shortly before their arrival.
A party of officers from the Central Division and the Homicide Bureau of Investigations, including Senior Supt Johnny Abraham, Supt Adams, Insp Terrance Williams, Sgt Jitindra Toolaram, Sgt Burnette, Cpl Raju, and WPC Funrose, among several others, visited the scene.
The body was viewed by District Medical Officer Trim before it was ordered removed to the San Fernando Mortuary.
An autopsy is expected to be performed at the Forensic Science Centre in St James today.
Police are asking for the public’s assistance in locating the suspect, noting that, according to their recent information, both of his legs were in a cast following a vehicular accident recently which resulted in his legs being broken. They said the injury has therefore confined him to a wheelchair.
The suspect, a 35-year-old Macaulay, Claxton Bay man, is also wanted in connection with the murder of Sherlene Mahangoo-Charles who was shot dead at her Ste Madeleine home. Her 14-year-old daughter was also injured in this incident.
Speaking to the media yesterday, Chadee’s relatives described the 19-year-old as a kind and loving woman, who was outspoken at times, but always respectful.
They noted that Chadee was the mother of an 11-month-old baby boy, whom she loved dearly, and was always seen taking care of.
“She was a young and vibrant persons and liked to do things that a normal teenager would do. She was a very nice child. Respectable. She was a little hot-tempered at times but for the right reasons. If you tell her something and she didn’t like it she would tell you as is. Plain talk bad manners. But she always voiced her opinions.
“She liked things like going to the beach and party life and things like that. But she was a mother figure. She settle down basically after she had her son and would take care of him and would walk with him and play with him and things that a mother would do,” recalled one of Chadee’s relatives.
However, relatives also noted that they were living in fear since the incident as they believed that the suspect could return for those who he saw at the home and as such, they were calling on the police to find the individual immediately.
This brings the murder toll for the year to 22. The murder toll at this time last year stood at 32
