Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Glen­da Aaron says she is haunt­ed by the bru­tal mur­der of her daugh­ter Shar­maine Fran­cois, whose body was found in a dirt track at New Grant, Princes Town, on Sat­ur­day. Aaron said she has felt un­bear­able grief since hear­ing of her daugh­ter's mur­der and the sus­pect­ed sui­cide of their neigh­bour, An­der­son Badal, who is be­lieved to have killed Fran­cois as she walked along Nagee Road, New Grant.

Up to late yes­ter­day, po­lice were search­ing for the mur­der weapon, which is cru­cial to solv­ing the case. Of­fi­cers be­lieve the gun was re­moved from the crime scene by some­one linked to the dou­ble deaths. Aaron said since the deaths, she has been un­able to eat or sleep.

"When I am alone, I hear my daugh­ter call­ing out to me...my daugh­ter did not de­serve this," she said. Fran­cois said she hopes the po­lice will solve the case quick­ly. Badal's rel­a­tives in­sist he was not re­spon­si­ble for Fran­cois' killing. "If he did this, where is the gun? He couldn't pos­si­bly shoot him­self, die and eat the gun," said Badal's moth­er Jen­nifer Ali, who claimed her son nev­er owned a gun.

"All he had was a phone. He did not do this," she said. Po­lice said based on ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tions, it ap­peared that Ali was stalk­ing Fran­cois and she re­ject­ed his ad­vances. Of­fi­cers are seek­ing help from the pub­lic in solv­ing the case. Au­top­sies on both bod­ies are ex­pect­ed to be done to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James. Fran­cois' fu­ner­al has been sched­uled for Wednes­day.