Trinidad: US citizen, four bandits among 11 killed on brutal Sunday

(Trinidad Guardian) Po­lice be­lieve the at­tempt­ed as­sas­si­na­tion of a Rachael Sukhdeo, the wid­ow of slain Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­man Sheron Sukhdeo, led to the mur­ders of a US cit­i­zen and woman in Princes Town yes­ter­day.

The dou­ble mur­der yes­ter­day brought the num­ber of peo­ple killed be­tween Sat­ur­day night to Sun­day af­ter­noon to sev­en.

Among the vic­tims a 61-year-old Jen­ny Grana­do, an uniden­ti­fied man and woman in Arou­ca, Jules Bruce who was found shot dead in St James, the uniden­ti­fied body of a man found off La­dy Chan­cel­lor Hill.

In all, 11 peo­ple were killed yes­ter­day, in­clud­ing four ban­dits who were shot and killed by po­lice af­ter they ter­rorised an Aranguez fam­i­ly.

In South Trinidad, homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion up to late yes­ter­day as they probed the fa­tal shoot­ing of Craig Hoi Pong and Neera Ram­dath of Ra­goo­nan Road, Cha­gaua­nas.

A third vic­tim, Stephen Bovell was be­ing treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) for in­juries.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, the vic­tims were among a group of peo­ple lim­ing at Nia Val­ley Au­di­to­ri­um in Matil­da Gar­dens, Princes Town.

Hoi Pong was the son of the Au­di­to­ri­um’s own­er Carl Hoi Po­ing.

Po­lice said around 3.30 pm, Hoi Pong, 40, went to close a bar­ri­er at the en­trance of the es­tate when two gun­men wear­ing dressed as Mus­lims ap­proached and opened fire.

He ran sev­er­al feet in­to the bush­es where he col­lapsed and died. The gun­men then went in­to the es­tate and opened fire on the group of peo­ple who were cook­ing.

Ram­dath, 39, who po­lice said re­sem­bled the Sukhdeo was hit sev­er­al times. She died at the scene.

Sukhdeo how­ev­er, was un­harmed.

South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice led by Snr Supt Wayne Mo­hammed re­spond­ed along with an am­bu­lance.

Bovell, 32, was tak­en to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was treat­ed and lat­er trans­ferred to the SFGH.

Sukhdeo was at the scene be­ing in­ter­viewed by po­lice.

This was not the first time she es­caped an at­tempt on her life.

In fact, ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, this was the 5th at­tempt by gun­men to end her life.

Back in May 2019, she was shot at in Cen­tral Trinidad.