Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Rel­a­tives of the man sus­pect­ed of killing Ter­isha Heer­alal say his ac­tions came as a com­plete shock as hours be­fore chop­ping Heer­alal to death, the 'hap­py' cou­ple vis­it­ed their home.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, the man's broth­er said the cou­ple came to their home in south Trinidad on Tues­day evening and were laugh­ing and hap­py at the time.

Heer­alal, 31, was chopped to death at her Pi­paro home by a male rel­a­tive around 1 am on Wednes­day. A rel­a­tive was al­so chopped on the left hand by the man who then ran in­to a bushy area be­hind the house.

"They came here the same evening, they said they came to col­lect a duck to make a cook.

"They were both drink­ing that evening and mov­ing like nor­mal, laugh­ing, mak­ing jokes... no­body ex­pect­ed this from him," the broth­er said.

How­ev­er, he said the fam­i­ly feared the man may harm him­self, as there have been ru­mours cir­cu­lat­ing since the in­ci­dent.

"We heard there was an emp­ty poi­son bot­tle on the scene and we have been ask­ing the po­lice to help us look for him but they are re­fus­ing. We have been go­ing to the area try­ing to find him but we have not been able to yet," the broth­er added.

He said he vis­it­ed the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion but was met with scorn when he asked for as­sis­tance.

"The of­fi­cer told me 'Boy, if that was my broth­er, I didn't ever want to see he face again,' but we just want some clo­sure. We want to know where he is and to be able to do the last rites for him if he did com­mit sui­cide," he said.

He said the po­lice did not seem in­ter­est­ed in find­ing his broth­er.

"We know what he did was wrong but why they don't go look­ing for him? What are they wait­ing for? For him to walk in the sta­tion?" he asked.

He said while Heer­alal and his broth­er some­times had ar­gu­ments, the pair were plan­ning to move to Eng­land by next year.

"He was in the process of re­new­ing his pass­port so they could move to Eng­land. They were plan­ning to take his two chil­dren and her two chil­dren. I don't know how it reached so far. I re­al­ly don't un­der­stand."

"I think he did it. He wouldn't want to go in jail and sit down. He got locked up in Au­gust for drink­ing and dri­ving and had to spend the night in the cell. He swear up and down that he couldn't make it in jail. So I be­lieve he would have drank the poi­son," the broth­er said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, an in­ves­ti­ga­tor in the mat­ter said the po­lice man­hunt for the sus­pect is still on­go­ing. The in­ves­ti­ga­tor de­clined to com­ment fur­ther.