(Trinidad Guardian) Up to late yesterday evening, police were still trying to determine a motive for the murders of a man and his common-law wife at their mini-mart on Penal Rock Road, Penal, on Monday night.
Officers said Radick Ajodha, 31, and Jenelle Thompson, 36, owner of Jenoie’s Mini Mart, lived a short distance away from where they were shot dead.
Initial police reports stated that shortly before 11 pm, an anonymous caller contacted the Police Command Centre about a shooting at Rock Road near Hope Trace.
When the officers arrived at the scene, residents directed them to the mini-mart where they found Ajodha’s body at the back, while Thompson’s body was inside the business place. Police found 16 spent 5.56 mm shells at the scene.
The couple was shot multiple times.
Speaking with reporters at the scene, Krissyann Vialva, who is Ajodha’s sister, said she was shocked.
“This was the last news I was expecting to hear. And for me to come home this morning after a 12-hour shift and get this news is really terrible,” said Vialva, who works as a security guard.
The grieving sister described her brother as a loving person.
“So whatsoever playoff and whatsoever happen, I really can’t say. But, from deep down inside if you not on nothing, nobody wouldn’t come and do you anything. Is either something went wrong or is off of jealousy, because it had certain times he use to be telling me it was fight down thing and all I used to tell him is that he have to take it down, pat down yourself because you have a young daughter. I really can’t say what happen,” cried Vialva.
Vialva said her brother and Thompson had been operating the parlour for about four or five years.
She last spent time with him on April 13, her birthday.
“We laugh, we talk, we lime a little bit, and then we gone. He was normal. I leave him as a jolly person,” she said.
The sister admitted she was not confident that she would receive justice from the police and instead was leaving the perpetrators to God.
“To me, the only how I think we could get justice is from the man above because the crime situation in Trinidad is every day somebody getting shoot. Every day somebody getting kill. Bodies falling like fly and at the end of story, nothing coming out of anything. Everything just stays one way and everything just repeating,” she complained.”
Meanwhile, Penal Debe Regional Corporation chairman Gowtam Maharaj, the local government representative for the area, called for an increased police presence in the area. He also asked for more resources for the Municipal Police and TTPS officers in the district.
He lamented that crime was affecting every area across the country.