Trinidad: Couple found dead, cops hunt jealous ex-lover

(Trinidad Guardian) A soured love af­fair is be­lieved to have led to the mur­der of a moth­er of one and her new boyfriend at the woman’s Para­mond Street, To­co Main Road, Ve­ga De Oropouche home ear­ly yes­ter­day.

The bod­ies of Natha­nia Cado­gan, 33, and a man known on­ly as Ray were dis­cov­ered by a close friend when she went to car­ry break­fast for Cado­gan.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 7.45 am, PCs Jagges­sar and Norville, who are at­tached to East­ern Rapid Re­sponse Unit, were re­turn­ing from a coastal pa­trol along the North East Coast when they were flagged down by res­i­dents who live at Ve­ga de Oropouche. When the of­fi­cers stopped they were told of the grue­some dou­ble mur­der in the qui­et squat­ting com­mu­ni­ty.

When the of­fi­cers went in­side the house they found Cado­gan in a pool of blood with sev­er­al bul­let wounds about the body and the man on the bed cov­ered in a blood-stained blan­ket, al­so with sev­er­al bul­let wounds about the body.

Po­lice of­fi­cers led by Snr Supt Bel­fon, ASPs Dave Re­vanales-Eti­enne, Robain, In­sp Lutch­man, Sgt Ed­wards, Cpl Os­ouna and Homi­cide of­fi­cers led by In­sp Parks and Cpl Mo­hammed re­spond­ed.

Cado­gan was an af­fi­davit clerk who for­mer­ly lived in Laven­tille be­fore mov­ing to the com­mu­ni­ty, while the man was said to have em­ployed with Carib Brew­ery.

Po­lice said they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that Cado­gan was grant­ed a re­strain­ing or­der against a for­mer lover just last Thurs­day. The said the man had been jeal­ous af­ter she moved on with her life and had been threat­en­ing her reg­u­lar­ly. Things be­came worse when her new boyfriend start­ed vis­it­ing her and the man re­port­ed­ly threat­ened to kill them both.

A close friend of Cado­gan, who gave her name on­ly as Asha, told the T&T Guardian they were lim­ing up to Sun­day night three hous­es away. She said she re­alised some­thing was wrong when she was go­ing to Cado­gan’s home yes­ter­day morn­ing and saw the trunk of her car open. She said she went to Cado­gan’s front door and called out to her, got no re­sponse, then opened the door went in­side, on­ly to be greet­ed by the hor­ri­ble sight of the two bod­ies. She said she ran out the house scream­ing and res­i­dents stopped a po­lice ve­hi­cle.

She said Cado­gan was do­ing some con­struc­tion work on her new home and was “a lov­ing, will­ing and gen­er­ous child.” She said Cado­gan, who had been liv­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty for about five years, was plan­ning to open a small food out­let at the front of her home.

“I will miss Natie,” she said as she broke down in tears.

Po­lice said they were told the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Cado­gan and her for­mer rel­a­tive turned sour when she re­alised the man had been us­ing her ve­hi­cle to trans­port drugs. She even­tu­al­ly broke off their re­la­tion­ship. Cado­gan’s new boyfriend vis­it­ed her on Sat­ur­day night and stayed the rest of the week­end.

Neigh­bours said they heard the shoot­ing around 12 am but they did not call the po­lice or go to in­ves­ti­gate be­cause they feared for their lives.

Coun­cil­lor for the area Anil Juter­am sent his con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the vic­tims and called for po­lice pa­trols in the new squat­ter area.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Kendell Ramoo viewed the bod­ies and or­dered their re­moval to the San­gre Grande mor­tu­ary be­fore they were tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre in St James for post-mortem.

Cpl Mo­hammed of Arou­ca Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion II is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions but po­lice said an ar­rest was im­mi­nent as the sus­pect was well known to them.