(Trinidad Guardian) A major question surrounds what happened in a car minutes before Melissa Mohammed-Ramkissoon, 33, of Cedar Hill, Claxton Bay, was shot in the head and driven to the Chaguanas Police Station by a close male relative on Tuesday night.
The investigation got a little more complicated for the police involved in the case last evening, after a distant male relative of Mohammed-Ramkissoon, who they were looking for in connection with the shooting, surrendered to the police at the Freeport Police Station.
The T&T Guardian was told that police were left with three different stories on what occurred after the distant male relative told them Mohammed-Ramkissoon was shot by her close male relative during a heated argument and he (distant relative) ran out the car and fled for his own life after witnessing the brazen attack.
But in an initial report Chaguanas Police Station officers, Mohammed-Ramkissoon’s close male relative, aged 35, said he and his wife picked up the distant male relative and were on their way to Felicity, Chaguanas, when an argument broke out among the three. He told police that he heard a gunshot and when he looked at Mohammed-Ramkissoon she was slumped in the front passenger seat. The man told police before he could move to hold the distant male relative, he had already opened the door and run out of the car.
The close male relative said when he realised Mohammed-Ramkissoon was not responding and he noticed she was bleeding from the right side of the head, he panicked and drove straight to the Chaguanas station for help. The incident, police said, happened near the cemetery.
Police officers said when they checked the close relative’s silver Tiida car which Mohammed-Ramkissoon was reportedly shot dead in, they found a .38 revolver on the floor.
Close relatives and friends who went to the Chaguanas station on Tuesday night said they were shocked to see the police had removed the vehicle and Mohammed-Ramkissoon’s body so quickly from the scene. However, Mohammed-Ramkissoon’s close male relative was immediately held for questioning.
Yesterday at Mohammed-Ramkissoon’s Cedar Hill Road, Claxton Bay home, the T&T Guardian met a locked house. Relatives who live nearby said she had lived there with her husband for the past 10 years.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a relative told the T&T Guardian Mohammed-Ramkissoon was last seen at about 7 pm walking along the Cedar Hill main road heading towards her house.
“We don’t know where she was coming from, if she had gone to meet anyone and was returning home, we don’t know. We are clueless as to what happened to her and who was in the vehicle with her and where she was going,” the relative said.
Another relative, a female cousin to Mohammed-Ramkissoon, who also wished not to give her name, added: “We are hearing all kinds of things with this. We really don’t know what’s the truth.”
Asked if she knew what relationship Mohammed-Ramkissoon shared with the distant male relative and if it was a norm for her to hang out and go places together with the two men, the cousin said: “I really don’t know. I don’t know if they were all friends or what.”
Mohammed-Ramkissoon’s cousin described her as a “bubbly” person.
“At one time we were very close but then the family pulled apart and we didn’t know much about her after that. All we know was that she was always a happy girl. Her mother and her other close relatives live in New York and are expected to come to Trinidad very soon.”
Relatives of the distant male relative said they too were in the dark over what happened.
“We really would like to know what happened, but the police haven’t gotten all the information yet and we are waiting on them to tell us something. Right now, the boy’s (distant male relative) parents and wife are at the police station and we are waiting on word. All we know is that Melissa was killed, but we do not know why and by who,” an uncle of one of the male relatives said.
