Trinidad: Suspect held for murder of Venezuelan migrant

(Trinidad Guardian) A Venezue­lan mi­grant who fled to T&T to es­cape the harsh eco­nom­ic con­di­tions is now fac­ing a pos­si­ble mur­der charge af­ter killing his com­mon-law wife on Sun­day.

The 32-year-old su­per­mar­ket work­er was ar­rest­ed on Mon­day fol­low­ing the stab­bing death of 26-year-old Kather­ine Di­az at the res­i­dence they resided at along King Street, Princes Town on Sun­day.

On­ly two weeks ago, Di­az, a moth­er of three, en­tered T&T seek­ing to earn mon­ey to help her fam­i­ly back home. Princes Town po­lice held the sus­pect hid­ing in some bush­es at Greaves Street, Princes Town.

Di­az, who was the moth­er of the sus­pect’s child, was stay­ing with him at a house in Princes Town. Ac­cord­ing to a re­port, the cou­ple who host­ed Di­az heard her scream­ing in their liv­ing room. When they checked, they saw the sus­pect stab her and run out of the house. The home­own­er said that on Sat­ur­day night, he and his wife picked up Di­az and the sus­pect and took them to a bar in Re­form Vil­lage. He said every­one had a good time and there was no ar­gu­ment be­tween Di­az and the sus­pect. 

They re­turned home around 3 am. When he and his wife went to sleep, Di­az and the sus­pect stayed on a couch in the liv­ing room. He said there was noth­ing that in­di­cat­ed that the two had prob­lems, nor was there any com­mo­tion be­fore the stab­bing.

Di­az was tak­en to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty where she died around 6.10 am. An au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre on Mon­day con­firmed that she suf­fered sev­er­al stab wounds, in­clud­ing a fa­tal punc­ture in her ab­domen. The home­own­er told Guardian Me­dia that his wife was from the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and would of­ten help mi­grants seek­ing a bet­ter life. He said they had re­cent­ly helped Di­az to get a job at a bar, op­er­at­ing a roulette game ma­chine. With the mon­ey she earned, she would have used it to pay for their own apart­ment.