A 44-year-old maxi taxi driver from Cunupia was murdered in an apparent botched robbery sometime on Saturday night.
Dudnath Beharry, a father of two, from Rangoo Trace, Warren Road, Cunupia, left home on Saturday afternoon to work the Curepe to Chaguanas maxi taxi route.
His wife, Judy Subero, contacted police and the owner of the maxi after he failed to return home later that night.
According to police reports, around 6 am yesterday, a farmer was walking to his garden at Caroni South Bank Road, Kelly Village, Caroni, when he saw a green band maxi taxi parked at the side of an abandoned sugarcane access road.
He contacted police after he saw that the driver was unconscious and blood oozing from a head injury.
The driver's window was rolled down and the victim, still wearing his seatbelt, was slung over in the driver's seat. He could not immediately be identified by police as his wallet was missing.
Subero got the chilling news of her husband's death when she went to the Cunupia Police Station to file a missing person's report. Police took her to the crime scene where she identified his body.
In an interview at her Cunupia home, hours after his body was found, Subero claimed that she sensed that something was wrong when he did not come home by 10 pm.
"He wasn't a limer. He would work in the morning and come home by 10 am for lunch and then go back out for a couple of hours in the evening," Subero said.
She said he had never deviated from the routine in the one and a half years he worked as a maxi taxi driver.
Subero also questioned why her husband's attackers would chose to shoot him after robbing him.
"He don't look for trouble. Anybody tell him something, he would just walk away. He would not have fought them," Subero said.
Subero said when she was searching for Beharry on Saturday night she spoke to other maxi taxi drivers who told her that they last saw him leaving the maxi taxi stand in Curepe with two male passengers around 9 pm.
Investigators were expected to interview the drivers today as they work on tracking down Beharry's killers.
Former president of the Green Band Maxi Taxi Association Kelvin Pierre said yesterday that robberies are a major cause of concern for maxi taxi operators.
Although he stated that robberies had decreased over the past few years, Pierre said: "One is still too many."
Pierre said that most of the robberies occurred at night while drivers were parked in the maxi stand in Curepe waiting for passengers.
Pierre also questioned the reason for killing Beharry as he claimed that he (Beharry) would not have had a large quantity of cash on him.
"At that hour he would not have much more than his float, so the police need to look into this because it is outside the norm," Pierre said.
Meanwhile, police are continuing investigations into the murder of a 29-year-old man from San Juan, who was shot dead on Friday.
According to reports, around 11.30 pm, Kester Alexander, of Laventille Road, San Juan, was liming with friends on the roadside near his home when the group was approached by two strangers.
The men drew guns and shot Alexander several times. Alexander, who police said had several pending court cases for gun possession, died on the scene.
So far, 293 people have been killed for the year.