(Trinidad Express) FAMED Hindu palm reader Mahadeo Jerrybandhan was shot and killed in an apparent robbery attempt at his family’s Cooper Street, San Fernando home on Monday night.
Jerrybandhan, 74, a resident of Key West, Florida, was shot once to the head in a bedroom of his son’s home, where he was on vacation.
His daughter-in-law, Sharlene Mootoo, said she last saw Jerrybandhan around 10 p.m in the yard with his two nephews preparing for Pitri Paksh, an auspicious period in the Hindu religious calendar.
She said both Jerrybandhan’s nephews went on errands and he returned to the house. Mootoo said she heard a loud noise, but it was not unusual for gunshots to ring out in the area.
Mootoo said: “When we looked we saw someone running out of the front gate. We went to the front bedroom and saw him (Jerrybandhan) lying in the bathroom of the front bedroom. He had one gunshot wound to his head.”
Mootoo said Jerrybandhan, a retired secondary school teacher, visited every year around the same time to observe the religious period.
She said Jerrybandhan, who once taught Mathematics at the Penal Secondary School, was the father of three children and grandfather of six, and was considered the perfect role model and friend. She said he liked to entertain and was always telling jokes.
“This is weird. Just out of the blue this happened. We are still in shock. He was a man who exercised, did yoga and ate healthy all the time. I believe he knew his attackers and in a panic they shot and killed him because he would have been able to identify them. But justice will come from God,” Mootoo said.
Police suspect Jerrybandhan was the vicitm of a botched robbery.
Family members said it is suspected that the killer hid in an overgrown lot across the road from family house.
Jerrybandhan, whose wife died several years ago, was well known in Key West for his palm-reading ability.
