(Trinidad Guardian) A combination of alcohol, along with the noise emanating from an apartment above at Building 16, Oropune Gardens, Piarco, are believed to be what led a suspect to kill a father and son on Saturday.
Following the stabbing rampage around midday at the Housing Development Corporation’s (HDC) apartment complex at Fourth Avenue, Imtiaz Mohammed, 46, lay dead. His son, Imraz Mohammed, 23, died at the Arima Health Facility a short while later; and his 17-year-old daughter, Nazeera Mohammed, was left nursing stab wounds to the head and upper body. She was fighting for her life at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, last night, after she took a turn for the worse yesterday. Relatives received a call around 1 pm indicating her vitals had worsened.
Meanwhile, 19-year-old Nicholas Dimatos, of Building 15, who was stabbed in the lower back with an ice pick during the attack, was said to be in a stable condition at hospital last night.
The suspect, who was arrested by officers of the North Central Division Major Crimes Unit minutes after the deadly incident, remained in police custody yesterday.
Indicating that after joy really does come sorrow, Imtiaz’s daughter-in-law, Sera Charlie, 24, yesterday said the family intended to spend the holiday weekend camping, as he had celebrated his 46th birthday on Thursday.
Charlie revealed that she and her husband, Imraz Mohammed, met her deceased relatives at a bar on Thursday, where they began the liming.
Speaking with Guardian Media yesterday in the stairwell outside the apartment where her relatives were stabbed on Saturday, she said the family was in a celebratory mood for the long weekend.
Pointing to the Mohammeds’ third-floor apartment, which is directly on top of the suspect’s apartment in the building, Charlie admitted the suspect often complained of the noise created by the young children playing and running in the apartment above and had spoken to the Mohammed family about it several times.
Other relatives present, yesterday, also said the Mohammed family had to caution the suspect about harassing Nazeera on more than one occasion, and there had been a constant “back and forth” between them.
Despite this, it was claimed the HDC neighbours were sometimes seen liming and drinking together, as was also the case on Friday night.
Saturday’s killing spree took place around noon, the morning after the Mohammed family and the suspect had been liming and drinking.
Charlie said, “The bacchanal start to happen the night before the murders, as the man downstairs call him (Imtiaz) back to apologise to him for whatever he was saying to his daughter.”
Charlie confirmed Nazeera had always complained of the suspect harassing her.
They woke on Saturday morning to begin preparations for the camping trip. Charlie said Dimatos and a woman from the opposite building were standing on the landing when the drama began unfolding.
Guardian Media was told the first person wounded in the attack was Dimatos, who was dragged by the suspect down the stairs while being stabbed in the lower back with an ice pick.
“When my mother-in-law went and wake up my father-in-law, he walked downstairs to see what was happening. And when he come back upstairs, he sit down in he place with the blade so if the man come, he go have self-defence for himself.”
Frightened after the suspect and Imtiaz began quarrelling, she said as items were hurled back and forth, she rushed the children into the apartment to keep them safe.
“When I come back outside, I see my brother-in-law lie down on the floor … he get stab on the head and he just lying down, bleeding out,” she recalled.
“My sister-in-law get stab in the head and shoulders, and they corner daddy by the front door and I see the man back … I feel if I had come outside, I woulda get stab too. Daddy couldn’t move from where he was.”
Imtiaz died at the scene after being stabbed several times in the back by a knife, while Imraz, who was reportedly stabbed with an ice pick, later succumbed to his injuries.
Charlie described Imraz as “not all there” after he suffered brain damage at a tender age. Despite his disability, she smiled as she recalled, “He used to be talking to himself so nobody coulda really communicate with him.
“But after I get to know him, we coulda communicate and me and him get real close. He was a good person to me … I used to call him brother-in-law and we understood one another.”
Imtiaz, she said, was a nice, caring person who was always focused on ensuring his family’s needs were met.
Admitting the Mohammed family was now feeling unsafe, Charlie said, “I hadda be strong for my mother-in-law and them children.”
The deceased men were said to have been living at the location for the past 16 years, while the suspect reportedly moved in several years ago and lived alone in the rented apartment.
Autopsies on the Mohammed men are expected to be performed tomorrow at the Forensic Science Centre, St James.