Trinidad: US citizen, four bandits among 11 killed on brutal Sunday

By Stabroek News On In Trinidad & Tobago News |
Curious onlookers stand beyond the police tape at the scene of the double murder in Nia Valley Auditorium in Matilda Gardens, Princes Town, yesterday.
Curious onlookers stand beyond the police tape at the scene of the double murder in Nia Valley Auditorium in Matilda Gardens, Princes Town, yesterday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Po­lice be­lieve the at­tempt­ed as­sas­si­na­tion of a Rachael Sukhdeo, the wid­ow of slain Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­man Sheron Sukhdeo, led to the mur­ders of a US cit­i­zen and woman in Princes Town yes­ter­day.

The dou­ble mur­der yes­ter­day brought the num­ber of peo­ple killed be­tween Sat­ur­day night to Sun­day af­ter­noon to sev­en.

Among the vic­tims a 61-year-old Jen­ny Grana­do, an uniden­ti­fied man and woman in Arou­ca, Jules Bruce who was found shot dead in St James, the uniden­ti­fied body of a man found off La­dy Chan­cel­lor Hill.

In all, 11 peo­ple were killed yes­ter­day, in­clud­ing four ban­dits who were shot and killed by po­lice af­ter they ter­rorised an Aranguez fam­i­ly.

In South Trinidad, homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion up to late yes­ter­day as they probed the fa­tal shoot­ing of Craig Hoi Pong and Neera Ram­dath of Ra­goo­nan Road, Cha­gaua­nas.

A third vic­tim, Stephen Bovell was be­ing treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) for in­juries.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, the vic­tims were among a group of peo­ple lim­ing at Nia Val­ley Au­di­to­ri­um in Matil­da Gar­dens, Princes Town.

Hoi Pong was the son of the Au­di­to­ri­um’s own­er Carl Hoi Po­ing.

Po­lice said around 3.30 pm, Hoi Pong, 40, went to close a bar­ri­er at the en­trance of the es­tate when two gun­men wear­ing dressed as Mus­lims ap­proached and opened fire.

He ran sev­er­al feet in­to the bush­es where he col­lapsed and died. The gun­men then went in­to the es­tate and opened fire on the group of peo­ple who were cook­ing.

Ram­dath, 39, who po­lice said re­sem­bled the Sukhdeo was hit sev­er­al times. She died at the scene.

Sukhdeo how­ev­er, was un­harmed.

South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice led by Snr Supt Wayne Mo­hammed re­spond­ed along with an am­bu­lance.

Bovell, 32, was tak­en to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was treat­ed and lat­er trans­ferred to the SFGH.

Sukhdeo was at the scene be­ing in­ter­viewed by po­lice.

This was not the first time she es­caped an at­tempt on her life.

In fact, ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, this was the 5th at­tempt by gun­men to end her life.

Back in May 2019, she was shot at in Cen­tral Trinidad.