Trinidad: Suspects in doubles vendor murder nabbed attempting to board flight to Guyana

(Trinidad Guardian) Pop­u­lar dou­bles ven­dor Dhroop Jages­sar was chopped to death at his busi­ness place on Mon­day night. How­ev­er, his body was on­ly found hours af­ter the ar­rest of a fe­male rel­a­tive and a 21-year-old man mo­ments be­fore they were about to board a flight at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Po­lice said the rel­a­tive and the sus­pect, an em­ploy­ee of Ja­groop, were at­tempt­ing to board a flight to Guyana at about 2 am when their “ner­vous be­hav­iour” alert­ed Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T se­cu­ri­ty. In­for­ma­tion the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials re­ceived from the 52-year-old woman and man, who are both Guyana na­tion­als, led them to con­tact the Freeport po­lice, who lat­er made the grue­some dis­cov­ery.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 4.30 am po­lice of­fi­cers from the Freeport Po­lice Sta­tion went to Jages­sar’s Cen­tral Dou­bles Fac­to­ry, which is lo­cat­ed on the com­pound of Globe City, off the Chase Vil­lage Fly­over in Ch­agua­nas, and broke the lock on the door to get in­side. Of­fi­cers found Jages­sar’s body with deep chop wounds to the face and head be­lieved to have been in­flict­ed by a cut­lass. Jages­sar, al­so a Guyanese na­tion­al, lived at the back of his busi­ness.

Guardian Me­dia was told AATT of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed the two pas­sen­gers af­ter they were ob­served “act­ing in a sus­pi­cious man­ner” as they were about to board a flight to George­town. Dur­ing an in­ter­ro­ga­tion, the woman re­port­ed­ly told se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers that she was be­ing tak­en from Trinidad against her will. In­for­ma­tion the AATT se­cu­ri­ty re­ceived dur­ing fur­ther ques­tion­ing led them to con­tact the Freeport po­lice.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Glob­al City yes­ter­day, a se­cu­ri­ty guard on the com­pound said the boss was not around. He al­so said he did not know much more. Veg­etable ven­dor Lawrence Joseph was seen pack­ing out his veg­eta­bles on a ta­ble near Jages­sar’s dou­bles shop. Asked if he knew Jages­sar, Joseph replied: “He was a pop­u­lar guy…known by all as the dou­bles man. I just knew him to be a friend­ly face but it is a sad day. I don’t know much be­cause by the time I reach here every­thing clear out. No po­lice, noth­ing but it is very sad.”

Up to press time, the two peo­ple re­mained in po­lice cus­tody.

In an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, Com­mu­ni­ty En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion En­rich­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) work­er Shaquille Mendez, 23, was shot dead by a gun­man at his Pe­tit Val­ley work­site yes­ter­day. Mendez, of Cameron Road, Pe­tit Val­ley, was one of two men shot by a lone gun­man who ap­proached them around 9.30 am. The gun­man then es­caped.

Mendez’s co-work­er was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he was treat­ed. Po­lice are yet to de­ter­mine a mo­tive for that killing.

In an­oth­er un­re­lat­ed mur­der, Rhon­del Hors­ford has been iden­ti­fied as the man who found in Bel­mont on Mon­day. Hors­ford was shot eight times while at Du­rant Street around 4.45 am. His body was found in a drain at the side of the road.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, homi­cide of­fi­cers have ruled the death of Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent Ben Am­brose as a mur­der.

The of­fi­cers ruled af­ter an au­top­sy re­vealed that he was asleep when he was shot in the head. A woman is now be­ing ques­tioned in con­nec­tion with his killing.

Ini­tial­ly, it was re­port­ed that Am­brose was at his Union Road home with friends when he shot him­self in the head dur­ing a game of Russ­ian Roulette. In­for­ma­tion reach­ing the Guardian Me­dia sug­gests that Am­brose was killed af­ter a fire­bomb­ing in­ci­dent in the area.

The mur­der toll now stands at 79. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to all in­ci­dents.