Trinidad triple murders: Autopsies find that victims’ throats were slit

(Trinidad Guardian) Au­top­sies on the bod­ies of the Pe­nal triple mur­der vic­tims re­vealed that their throats were slit.

The pathol­o­gist found that Wazir Mo­hammed, 57, who op­er­at­ed a scrap iron and used truck parts business at his home, was al­so shot in the chest.

Po­lice said while they had no clear mo­tive for the crime which has sent shock­waves through­out the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, it did not ap­pear rob­bery was linked to the grue­some crime.

Mo­hammed’s wife, Shelly-Ann Ra­goo­nanan, 43 and his un­cle, Naz­im, 52, were al­so killed in the at­tack which po­lice be­lieve oc­curred since last Sun­day.

The cause of their deaths were con­firmed af­ter post mortem ex­am­i­na­tions at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Centre in St James on Friday.

The de­com­pos­ing bod­ies were dis­cov­ered on Thurs­day at about 3 pm at their home at Clarke Road in Pe­nal. The cou­ple’s young chil­dren —a three-year-old girl and an eight-month-old ba­by boy—were rescued from the home by their el­der broth­er who went to check on his par­ents.

The three-year-old girl and her eight-month-old broth­er were found soaked in blood.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the FSC, Ra­goo­nanan’s grand­fa­ther Dipraj, 72, said he cried uncontrollably when he saw the chil­dren.

He said the two chil­dren were starv­ing and de­hy­drat­ed when they were res­cued.

“They were giv­en IV flu­ids at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal…we left there late last night be­cause they were see­ing about them.”

Po­lice at the scene on Thurs­day said the chil­dren ap­peared to be well-fed and rel­a­tive­ly clean lead­ing to sus­pi­cions that some­one else was in the house with them af­ter the mur­ders.

“The lit­tle girl does call me Nana and she told me Nana, Nana I try­ing to wake up mum­my for tea but she not wak­ing up…my heart broke…I start to cry. If you see them state…the clothes mess up with blood and stuff…their hands and faces,” Dipraj said.

Dipraj said both chil­dren were ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal as they were very weak and their health need­ed to be un­der con­stant ob­ser­va­tion for the next few days.

The hor­rif­ic dis­cov­ery was made by Ra­goo­nanan and Wazir’s old­er son Vishard Mo­hammed, 21.

Dipraj said there was still no mo­tive as to why they were all killed.

He said while he did not have much to do with Ra­goo­nanan’s hus­band and his fam­i­ly, he de­scribed his grand­daugh­ter as a kind-heart­ed per­son.

“She was re­al­ly a good per­son…very qui­et…they just would drop her off by me and come back for her. She nev­er worked too as she had no cause to…her hus­band came from a mon­ey fam­i­ly.”

Dipraj said he ac­com­pa­nied Vishard to the house af­ter Vishard com­plained to him that he failed on numer­ous times to con­tact his par­ents.

“When we went, the gate was locked and the boy jumped the wall and went in the house…the door was open and that’s when he saw the bod­ies rot­ting and the chil­dren among the bod­ies… My heart broke…I start­ed to cry to see the chil­dren in the state they were in,” Dipraj said.

Dipraj said he is hop­ing and pray­ing for jus­tice.

“I am a Hin­du and I pray a lot…God is love and God will an­swer my prayers. I will get to know why my grand­daugh­ter was killed and for what.”

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers re­turned to the crime scene on Fri­day to car­ry out ex­ten­sive search­es and to collect any ev­i­dence that may as­sist in help­ing solve the case.