SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Still reel­ing from the mur­der of nurs­ing stu­dent Sal­ly Roopan on Mon­day, the com­mu­ni­ty of Cou­va was rocked again yes­ter­day as an­oth­er one of its women was bru­tal­ly tak­en away–this time a preschool teacher.Po­lice iden­ti­fied the lat­est vic­tim as Judy Duke-Guer­ro, the 33-year-old moth­er of three, of Ceme­tery Street, Per­se­ver­ance Vil­lage.Po­lice said Duke-Guer­ro's body was dis­cov­ered around 4.30 pm by her 18-year-old broth­er. She was found bound at the feet and hands, she was blind­fold­ed and her throat was slit.

The vic­tim's moth­er Lynette Duke cried un­con­solably as the po­lice con­duct­ed their in­ves­ti­ga­tions, and was con­stant­ly con­soled by friends and rel­a­tives, all stunned by this lat­est killing of a woman they deemed in­no­cent and very friend­ly to all who knew her.The woman had three chil­dren, De­neesa, Johnathon and Joshua, all still in pri­ma­ry school, with her for­mer hus­band An­drew Guer­ro, 40.

Speak­ing to the me­dia out­side the house yes­ter­day, as vil­lagers crowd­ed to the scene for a first-hand look at crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­duct­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Guer­ro said he and his wife had sep­a­rat­ed more than a year ago.He said he could not un­der­stand why any­one would want to kill her, but said: "She did not de­serve die in such a hor­rif­ic man­ner."Guer­ro broke down in tears when un­der­tak­ers re­moved the body around 7 pm, and had to be con­soled by Leno­ra Bish­op, 50, a close friend of the vic­tim.

Bish­op said Cou­va has now be­come the mur­der cap­i­tal of T&T.She said she last saw Duke-Guer­ro, who taught at a near­by preschool on Mary Street, on Tues­day morn­ing when she ar­rived at her home to pick up her chil­dren for school. Bish­op, too, said she could not un­der­stand why any­one would want to kill her friend."I don't see any rea­son why they killed her. Peo­ple in Cou­va are liv­ing in fear, the crim­i­nals are now mov­ing in­to this area."

Cen­tral Homi­cide de­tec­tives are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.Duke-Guer­ro's killing came less than 24 hours af­ter the killing of Roopan, 25.Duke-Guer­ro was al­so the third per­son to be mur­dered in cen­tral Trinidad in four days.Wayne Hay­woood, 30, was killed out­side a pop­u­lar Cou­va rumshop on Sat­ur­day, be­fore Roopan was killed on Mon­day.The mur­der was al­so the sev­enth in four days, tak­ing the toll for the year to 54 up to last evening. The com­par­a­tive toll for the last year was 41.