Po­lice have launched a man­hunt for a sec­ond sus­pect in the at­tempt­ed rape and mur­der of a 24-year-old East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty em­ploy­ee yes­ter­day.

Ner­is­sa Nick­ey Goo­ra, 24, a clerk at San­gre Grande Health Cen­tre at Riv­er Road, died at hos­pi­tal af­ter she was stabbed by one of two men who at­tacked her as she was walk­ing to her Tamana Hill home on Wednes­day evening.

Rel­a­tives said she gave a de­scrip­tion of at least one of the sus­pects be­fore she was tak­en away to hos­pi­tal and po­lice used this de­scrip­tion to de­tain a man yes­ter­day.

The de­tained man was as­sist­ing po­lice in ap­pre­hend­ing the sec­ond sus­pect up to last night.

Goo­ra died of a stab wound she re­ceived just above her navel while un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal.

Her grand­moth­er, Su­ru­j­daye Boodoo, told T&T Guardian she was in her liv­ing room around 2.10 pm on Wednes­day when she heard Goo­ra fran­ti­cal­ly call­ing to her. Boodoo said she went out in­to the gallery and saw Goo­ra ly­ing on the couch cov­ered in blood with her blouse torn apart.

The shocked woman said she asked Goo­ra what hap­pened.

"Ner­is­sa ut­tered these words to me while gasp­ing for breath ... 'Deedee I got stab.'"

Boodoo said Goo­ra told her "a black cre­ole boy who was hid­ing in the bush­es" at­tacked her and man­aged to give a de­scrip­tion of her at­tack­er be­fore she fell back on the couch and fell un­con­scious.

Boodoo said she cried out for help, call­ing to Goo­ra's fa­ther, Igna­cio, who lives two hous­es away, and telling him to or­gan­ise trans­port to take her to the hos­pi­tal.

A neigh­bour who was pass­ing by stopped and put Boodoo in his ve­hi­cle and rushed her to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal.

Doc­tors took her to the op­er­at­ing the­ater im­me­di­ate­ly but she died on the op­er­at­ing ta­ble.

Igna­cio Goo­ra said yes­ter­day he be­lieved his daugh­ter was at­tacked while walk­ing along the lone­ly part of Tamana Hill Road.

He said she seemed to have put up a good fight her against her at­tack­ers and man­aged to evade them and run to her grand­moth­er's home, which is about 300 me­ters away, even af­ter they stabbed her as she tus­sled with them.

Not­ing, Goo­ra al­ways walked home by her­self along the road af­ter work, the dis­traught fa­ther said he was still con­fused by the at­tack.

"I al­ways know my daugh­ter to be friend­ly and she has no en­e­mies," he said, try­ing to hold back the tears.

Nedi­ra Goo­ra, the vic­tim's sis­ter, said Ner­is­sa brought lunch for her ear­li­er on Wednes­day out­side the Econ­o­my Su­per­mar­ket.

"I could not be­lieve that my lit­tle sis­ter, who was alive a few hours ago, is dead," she said.

She said her sis­ter's killing was the first mur­der at Tamana Hill, not­ing it was peace­ful agri­cul­tur­al vil­lage.

"Every­one lives as a fam­i­ly in here and we're free to move in and out of the vil­lage with­out any fear. Now I have to be very care­ful when walk­ing along the road," the tear­ful woman said.

She said they of­ten had to walk home be­cause ve­hi­cles stopped work­ing in­side the com­mu­ni­ty be­cause of the de­plorable con­di­tion of the roads. Taxis, she said, drop them along the Guaico Tamana Road and they walk the rest of the way to get home.

"I will miss Ner­is­sa," she said, not­ing she calls her 'Smile' be­cause of her pos­i­tive de­meanour.

The woman's co-work­ers at San­gre Grande Health Cen­ter were al­so dis­traught over her killing. Chrys­tal Sookdeo, one of her close friends, said Ner­is­sa was jol­ly and mak­ing jokes with them and all those who had at­tend­ed clin­ic on Wednes­day.

"Her death has trau­ma­tised some of us if not all. In the morn­ing Ner­is­sa was alive, in the af­ter­noon she left for the bank and then we re­ceived the news that she is dead," Sookdeo said.

Goo­ra was the sec­ond woman to be mur­dered af­ter leav­ing their work­place in San­gre Grande re­cent­ly.

Po­lice are still in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mur­der of Fe­li­cia Per­sad, of Ve­ga de Oropouche, whose body was found in Mi­tan Riv­er, Man­zanil­la, last month.

Per­sad was found in a leather bag which had been tied to the root of a man­grove tree and weight­ed down with piece of a dec­o­ra­tive con­crete pil­lar. Her killer/killers are yet to be ar­rest­ed.

RALPH BAN­WARIE