(Trinidad Guardian) After mother of two, Abiola Noel, and her on-again off-again boyfriend, Andre La Touche, had been shot in Laventille yesterday, their killers spent a few moments peering at them as they lay dying in order to satisfy themselves that the job had been done.
According to police reports, Noel, 25, and La Touche, 28, were leaving Noel’s Eastern Quarry, Laventille, home in a silver Nissan Tiida around 8.30 am when gunmen approached the moving vehicle and fired several shots at it. La Touche, the driver, crashed the vehicle into a concrete dumpster.
After the vehicle crashed, however, the gunmen reportedly walked over to it and peeped inside at their victims. Police believe that they did that to ensure La Touche, who they suspect was the target, was dead, and to confirm their fears that they had inadvertently murdered Noel, who was one of their neighbours.
Police said the only motive they had was that the killers wanted La Touche, who was “known to them,” police jargon usually meaning the person has either a criminal history or has been accused and/or arrested on numerous occasions for a criminal offence, typically gun and drug related.
Police said La Touche, originally from Fifth Avenue, Malick, Barataria, had gotten into an altercation with some men from Eastern Quarry, Laventille, at Malick and the men targeted him when he returned to Eastern Quarry.
Speaking with the media at the scene of her daughter’s murder yesterday, Michelle Andrews questioned why her neighbours for the past 16 years would blatantly and brazenly murder her child. Andrews said her daughter was like “saltfish,” meaning she got along well with all who knew her.
She sent this message to her first-born’s killers: “All who out there and being on that gun thing and crime scene, I want them to know that my daughter don’t be on nothing. She is a saltfish. And this thing what going on where everyone fighting, it is not an easy thing.
“I now have two grandchildren that I have to take care of and I am not well. I just want justice to prevail in this.”
Andrews added that justice would be given lawfully or otherwise, but she was sure justice would be given.
She said she last spoke to her daughter about an hour before she died, when she left home. She said her daughter, a customer service trainee at Rituals’ El Socorro branch, was very jovial and she believed if the police had allowed her access to the victims immediately after the shooting, she might have survived.
“When I reached by the car her foot was still moving. I said ‘Oh God, is my daughter!’, but they (police) said that it is a crime scene and I could not go any further. The ambulance came and I was trying to talk to one of the ambulance personnel, but I could not even do that. I realise they had gone and left the body so I knew that they both died,” Andrews said.
“She was alive when we rushed to the car. Her feet were on the dashboard and we saw it moving. It is a possibility that they could have saved her life.
“What I am saying is, the police said it was a crime scene and I would not want to disturb and they know what they are doing, but if you see someone’s finger or toe moving that means they are still alive. … But if they acted they might have saved her.”
Andrews said she hardly knew La Touche, but said he was always respectful towards her. The couple’s murder has pushed the toll to 73 for the year.
