(Trinidad Express) A Venezuelan mother of three was shot dead allegedly by her Venezuelan boyfriend in Carapichaima early yesterday.
Evelyn Mata Rojas, 29, was shot twice in the chest and died in a laundry area outside her rented apartment at Ojar Maharaj Extension, Waterloo Road.
Police are searching for the boyfriend who also lived in one of the apartments, as well as another man, in
connection with the incident.
Rojas’ landlord, Jeffrey Dyette, who lives upstairs the apartment complex, said Rojas, her children, her boyfriend and other relatives moved into the apartment last month.
Dyette said Rojas had been living in Trinidad for about three years and spoke English well.
The landlord said for the past month she had not worked and did not go anywhere, and that she had several visitors during that time.
Dyette said he spoke to her hours before her death about people coming to see her.
“I told her that when woman have three and four men, that does cause death and fighting. I didn’t know I was talking to her about her death,” he said.
“She used to call me ‘Daddy’. She said, ‘Daddy, me eh understand.’ She say, ‘I love you, love you.’”
Dyette, a baker, said he got up around 3 a.m. to prepare pastries when he found her lying in a pool of blood in the laundry area at the back of the apartment complex.
He said he saw two men walking out onto the street.
Police were contacted, but Dyette claimed officers of the Emergency Response Unit arrived hours later.
Another neighbour told the Sunday Express Rojas had three children aged 12, nine and seven.
He said when he went to enquire what happened at the apartment, Rojas’ children and the other Venezuelan men and women had vacated the apartment.
On Friday night, Rojas and the other Venezuelans were playing Latin music and liming. Police were told one of her ex-boyfriends came, in a vehicle, to the apartment to look for her, and there was a confrontation, allegedly with her current boyfriend.
Dyette said he was asleep when the confrontation occurred.
He said he would have defended Rojas.
“The woman was a good woman,” he said. “I saw the woman lying down on the ground. I didn’t hear anything. I would defend my place, and once you living here I will defend you.
“No man could come here and play he lashing you. But I was sleeping. If I was up, it would have been a different story,” said the landlord.
