Trinidad: Murder of Seebran brothers still unsolved after accused goes free

(Trinidad Guardian) Clothes, pho­tos, shoes, even a bank card and oth­er per­son­al items be­long­ing to Neil, 25, and Nigel See­bran, 23, are cher­ished and close­ly guard­ed by their fam­i­ly at their Granville, Ce­dros home. Of­ten­times, their par­ents, Chata­goon and Gee­ta See­bran, both 63, can be heard speak­ing to their sons with whom they shared a strong bond but the re­sponse is al­ways the same—a gut-wrench­ing si­lence.

This is be­cause 14 years ago, the broth­ers were asleep in their bed­rooms when they were at­tacked, tied up and tak­en to a bushy area at the back of their home where they were chopped to death. Their killers dug a hole, threw their bod­ies in and buried them. In an at­tempt to throw off sus­pi­cion, the killers plant­ed trees on top of the grave.

Un­aware that they were be­neath the dirt just 100 feet be­hind their home, for 56 days their par­ents, old­er sis­ter Sal­ly, oth­er rel­a­tives, vil­lagers and friends car­ried out search­es in and around the area.

With no clue about their where­abouts, the fam­i­ly still clung to the hope that they were alive. Then, one rainy morn­ing, vil­lager Franklin Fran­cis “guid­ed by a vi­sion from God” found the grave. There was a lot of spec­u­la­tion about who killed them and why but the po­lice had no ev­i­dence to ar­rest any­one un­til four years lat­er when Ka­reem Guade­loupe, of Point Fortin, al­leged­ly con­fessed to po­lice that he was with two men, “Sug­ars” and “Scrap,” who killed the broth­ers, but that his role was on­ly to dig the grave.

Last month, how­ev­er, fol­low­ing a tri­al in which Guade­loupe claimed he was tricked by the po­lice in­to sign­ing a state­ment he did not give, a ju­ry in the San Fer­nan­do Supreme Court found him not guilty and he was set free. This was an out­come the See­bran fam­i­ly did not an­tic­i­pate, re­sult­ing in their emo­tion­al wounds be­ing ripped open again, flood­ing them with vivid mem­o­ries of the mur­ders that brought them de­spair, anger and sad­ness.

Pe­rus­ing sev­er­al news­pa­per clip­pings from 2005 to present at their Syfoo Trace home, Gee­ta smiled but it failed to hide the sad­ness in her eyes. The bed­room she shares with her hus­band is dec­o­rat­ed with their sons’ pho­tos, news­pa­per clip­pings and their favourite jer­seys hang­ing on clothes racks and is sim­i­lar to a shrine.

Neil and Nigel’s clothes are kept in bags in a wardrobe in Neil’s bed­room, which is now be­ing used by their niece. In the liv­ing room, their shoes are proud­ly dis­played on the space saver, as well as Neil’s bank card.

“I want to keep them around me. The mem­o­ries and these things are all I have of them,” said their moth­er as she vowed nev­er to stop fight­ing for jus­tice for her two sons.

There will al­ways be an empti­ness in the See­bran’s home and in their hearts.

Wip­ing away her tears, Sal­ly said, “The pain will nev­er go away. Is like a bro­ken record. It don’t have a day that goes by that I don’t think about what life could have been if my broth­ers were here. We were hap­py. We are a hap­py fam­i­ly, al­ways laugh­ing.”

Gee­ta said her sons were play­ful, hum­ble and al­ways will­ing to help some­one.

She fond­ly re­called, “When my back hurt­ing, Neil will squeeze my back for me. If my foot dirty, he will wet a cloth and wipe it for me.”

She ad­mit­ted that her sons some­times got in “a lil con­flict in the rum shop,” but they were not “Bad Johns.” Gee­ta lost an­oth­er child, her youngest, at one-year-and-six months. He was di­ag­nosed with Down Syn­drome. She called on oth­er par­ents and peo­ple who are fight­ing for jus­tice for their loved ones who were mur­dered to band to­geth­er. “I think it is time we stand up, protest, do some­thing. It is so un­fair to us.”