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Friday, July 18, 2025

Dad on killing of son on Moth­er's Day...

I tried my best to live with him

by

20160517

Kr­ish­na Ram­lal's biggest re­gret in rais­ing his son, Sham, was leav­ing him when he was just a boy in Trinidad and jour­ney­ing to New York in search of a bet­ter life for his fam­i­ly.

Ram­lal now be­lieves that Sham was starved for love in his for­ma­tive years, caus­ing him to act out with vi­o­lent out­bursts to­wards him and his wife, Flo­ra Siew­nar­ine, in his adult years.

Ram­lal, 60, was re­leased from po­lice cus­tody on Sat­ur­day night, six days af­ter he was de­tained for ques­tion­ing in Sham's death.

Sham died at the house he shared with his par­ents from a stab wound to the stom­ach on Moth­er's Day.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ram­lal had this ad­vice for par­ents: "Do not miss out on those im­por­tant years in your chil­dren's lives. It can make all the dif­fer­ence in the world."

Ram­lal said he and Flo­ra had left Sham, then eight, and his sis­ters–San­dra, 14 and See­ta, 12– with their pa­ter­nal grand­moth­er to try to make a bet­ter life for their fam­i­ly in New York.

"I couldn't take them with me at that time. I didn't know where I was go­ing or what I would meet. We were just try­ing to get a bet­ter life for our chil­dren, to make some­thing that they would have for the rest of their lives."

While in New York, Ram­lal worked in one me­nial job af­ter the oth­er, pinch­ing pen­nies un­til he was able to make a down­pay­ment on a house.

Things seemed to be go­ing ac­cord­ing to plan un­til Sham be­gan hav­ing seizures and black­ing out, he said.

"When he start­ed hav­ing seizures, he was about nine and my moth­er took him to all the doc­tors and hos­pi­tals in Trinidad but noth­ing was work­ing.

"When he was about 12 or 13 I came home and took him to New York with me to try to get him some help," he said.

His daugh­ters would soon fol­low as their grand­moth­er passed away some months af­ter.

"We were to­geth­er as a fam­i­ly again and Sham start­ed get­ting treat­ment at hos­pi­tal where the doc­tors had him on a lot of med­ica­tion.

"Af­ter about two years, the doc­tor called me in one day and said that they had seen a clot in his brain dur­ing an MRI scan.

"He said when Sham was ex­haust­ed, the clot ex­pand­ed and caused him to seize and black­out, but he told me that be­cause of the treat­ment the clot would not both­er him.

"The on­ly con­di­tion he gave me was that Sham should not be al­lowed to drink al­co­hol or use il­le­gal drugs."

But when the fam­i­ly re­turned to Pe­nal from New York sev­en years ago, Sham be­gan to spin out of con­trol slow­ly.

The death of his el­dest sis­ter, San­dra, five years ago was a ma­jor tip­ping point for him, his fa­ther said.

"He start­ed with one or two drinks but af­ter San­dra died he start­ed to get out of con­trol. He would come home drunk, mash up any­thing, curse me and his moth­er. It was not a nice thing to live with."

In spite of all of that, Ram­lal said he tried his best to live with his son.

"He was my on­ly son, every­thing I have, down to my last pair of un­der­wear, was Sham's. I made my will years ago, leav­ing the house and land to him."

He said if he could do it again, he would have stayed in T&T with his chil­dren.

"Now I could look back and say it didn't make any sense. I should have stayed here with my chil­dren."

'I didn't know he was in­jured'

Re­lat­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence on the night his son died, Ram­lal said: "We were sleep­ing and he came and start­ed curs­ing and beat­ing the door.

"He was play­ing the ra­dio loud and when I went out­side to take it off, he start­ed beat­ing me. I got away and come in­side the room but he fol­lowed me... I was bend­ing down to put the ra­dio on a chair when he jumped on me and start­ed kick­ing me."

Ram­lal said the knife which would end his son's life was on his dress­er at the time.

"Most of the time we would hide the knives and cut­lass­es from him. I guess he see it then and pick it up. We start­ed to strug­gle for it and the whole time he was kick­ing me and cussing me."

The strug­gle led them in­to the kitchen area where Ram­lal said Sham slipped on a mat and fell to the ground.

"He was hold­ing on­to the knife and I was try­ing to take it from him. When he fall, the pointy tip of the knife was fac­ing him."

But he said he did not re­alise Sham had been in­jured.

"I fell on top of him and sud­den­ly I couldn't find the knife, so I �jump up and ran out­side. I didn't know any­thing was wrong with him. It was on­ly when his moth­er went in­to the kitchen, she start­ed bawl­ing, say­ing 'Sham bleed­ing.'"

Ram­lal was tak­en in­to cus­tody on the same night by of­fi­cers of the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion.


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