Trinidad triple murders: Autopsies find that victims’ throats were slit

Police officer in front of the home where three persons were killed at Clarke Road, Penal.
Police officer in front of the home where three persons were killed at Clarke Road, Penal.

(Trinidad Guardian) Au­top­sies on the bod­ies of the Pe­nal triple mur­der vic­tims re­vealed that their throats were slit.

The pathol­o­gist found that Wazir Mo­hammed, 57, who op­er­at­ed a scrap iron and used truck parts business at his home, was al­so shot in the chest.

Po­lice said while they had no clear mo­tive for the crime which has sent shock­waves through­out the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, it did not ap­pear rob­bery was linked to the grue­some crime.

Mo­hammed’s wife, Shelly-Ann Ra­goo­nanan, 43 and his un­cle, Naz­im, 52, were al­so killed in the at­tack which po­lice be­lieve oc­curred since last Sun­day.

The cause of their deaths were con­firmed af­ter post mortem ex­am­i­na­tions at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Centre in St James on Friday.

The de­com­pos­ing bod­ies were dis­cov­ered on Thurs­day at about 3 pm at their home at Clarke Road in Pe­nal. The cou­ple’s young chil­dren —a three-year-old girl and an eight-month-old ba­by boy—were rescued from the home by their el­der broth­er who went to check on his par­ents.

The three-year-old girl and her eight-month-old broth­er were found soaked in blood.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the FSC, Ra­goo­nanan’s grand­fa­ther Dipraj, 72, said he cried uncontrollably when he saw the chil­dren.

He said the two chil­dren were starv­ing and de­hy­drat­ed when they were res­cued.

“They were giv­en IV flu­ids at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal…we left there late last night be­cause they were see­ing about them.”

Po­lice at the scene on Thurs­day said the chil­dren ap­peared to be well-fed and rel­a­tive­ly clean lead­ing to sus­pi­cions that some­one else was in the house with them af­ter the mur­ders.

“The lit­tle girl does call me Nana and she told me Nana, Nana I try­ing to wake up mum­my for tea but she not wak­ing up…my heart broke…I start to cry. If you see them state…the clothes mess up with blood and stuff…their hands and faces,” Dipraj said.

Dipraj said both chil­dren were ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal as they were very weak and their health need­ed to be un­der con­stant ob­ser­va­tion for the next few days.

The hor­rif­ic dis­cov­ery was made by Ra­goo­nanan and Wazir’s old­er son Vishard Mo­hammed, 21.

Dipraj said there was still no mo­tive as to why they were all killed.

He said while he did not have much to do with Ra­goo­nanan’s hus­band and his fam­i­ly, he de­scribed his grand­daugh­ter as a kind-heart­ed per­son.

“She was re­al­ly a good per­son…very qui­et…they just would drop her off by me and come back for her. She nev­er worked too as she had no cause to…her hus­band came from a mon­ey fam­i­ly.”

Dipraj said he ac­com­pa­nied Vishard to the house af­ter Vishard com­plained to him that he failed on numer­ous times to con­tact his par­ents.

“When we went, the gate was locked and the boy jumped the wall and went in the house…the door was open and that’s when he saw the bod­ies rot­ting and the chil­dren among the bod­ies… My heart broke…I start­ed to cry to see the chil­dren in the state they were in,” Dipraj said.

Dipraj said he is hop­ing and pray­ing for jus­tice.

“I am a Hin­du and I pray a lot…God is love and God will an­swer my prayers. I will get to know why my grand­daugh­ter was killed and for what.”

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers re­turned to the crime scene on Fri­day to car­ry out ex­ten­sive search­es and to collect any ev­i­dence that may as­sist in help­ing solve the case.