Derek Achong

A Laven­tille woman was among four peo­ple mur­dered with­in hours of each oth­er across north Trinidad on Sat­ur­day night. Their deaths brought the week­end mur­der toll to sev­en. Up to late yes­ter­day, the mur­der toll for the year stood at 156. Sat­ur­day night's vic­tims were:

• Sean Bap­tiste, 41, of Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain;

• An uniden­ti­fied woman from Laven­tille;

• Emanuel Ali, 19, of Finch Dri­ve, Diego Mar­tin; and

• Kr­ish­na Boodram, 46, of Koonoo Av­enue, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas.

In the first in­ci­dent, short­ly af­ter 9 pm, Bap­tiste was shot dead in front of the Peo­ple's Mall on Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain. Po­lice said Bap­tiste was stand­ing near a booth at the mall when he was ap­proached by two gun­men who opened fire on him. Bap­tiste, who was de­scribed by the po­lice as a "street hus­tler," was shot sev­er­al times in the head and up­per body and died on the scene.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 min­utes lat­er, res­i­dents of Up­per Es­pinet Street, Laven­tille, re­port­ed hear­ing sev­er­al gun­shots in the area. The bul­let-rid­dled body of a woman was found on the road­way a short time lat­er. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the woman did not have any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments on her. She was in her ear­ly 20s, of African de­scent and of light com­plex­ion.

The body was tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, where an au­top­sy will be done lat­er to­day. Po­lice are ap­peal­ing to any­one who may be able to iden­ti­fy the woman to con­tact the Besson Street CID at 625-8008. About an hour af­ter that in­ci­dent, homi­cide de­tec­tives were sum­moned to Shore Dri­ve, Pe­tit Val­ley, where res­i­dents found Ali's body.

De­tec­tives be­lieve that Ali was am­bushed by a gun­man who shot him in the head and dumped his body in a drain. They have clas­si­fied Ali's mur­der as drug-re­lat­ed. ASP Ajith Per­sad, In­spec­tor Nes­bitt, Cpl Hink­son and PC Nar­ine vis­it­ed the three mur­der scenes and are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Sev­er­al hours af­ter Ali's death, Boodram's mu­ti­lat­ed body was found by his em­ploy­er at a poul­try de­pot at Five Rivers, Arou­ca. At around 7.15 am yes­ter­day, the busi­ness­man went to the de­pot on the East­ern Main Road and found Boodram dead on a blood-soaked mat­tress. He had mul­ti­ple chop wounds to the head and hands.

The busi­ness­man told po­lice a met­al box con­tain­ing $50,000 was miss­ing from the de­pot. Boodram was last seen by his em­ploy­er at around 8 pm on Sat­ur­day. When a news team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, Boodram's son Rod­ney said his fa­ther had moved out of the fam­i­ly's home af­ter di­vorc­ing his moth­er.

An emo­tion­al Rod­ney said his fa­ther was work­ing at the de­pot dur­ing the day and served as a watch­man for the prop­er­ty at night. Supt Nel­son and In­sp Wayne Bap­tiste vis­it­ed the scene and are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Mean­while, a moth­er of two was among three peo­ple killed be­tween Fri­day night and Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.

Wendy Ar­joon, 33, of Quar­ry Road, Morne Di­a­blo was stabbed to death at her home at around 2.30 pm on Sat­ur­day. Up to late yes­ter­day, po­lice were search­ing for a 45-year-old man in con­nec­tion with Ar­joon's killing. The oth­er vic­tims were 17-year-old Ke­mo Gomez, of Jack­son Place, East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain, and Michael "Mon­ster" Ed­wards of Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant. Gomez and Ed­wards were shot dead in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents near their homes on Fri­day night.