When OAS work­er Nor­ris Men­doza got laid off last year, he start­ed work­ing PH to get mon­ey to sup­port his fam­i­ly and tosend his el­dest daugh­ter, Elise,to uni­ver­si­ty.

But Men­doza's dreams of see­ing his daugh­ter­grad­u­ate were brought to an abrupt end on Wednes­day night, when two men­pos­ing as pas­sen­gers hi­jacked, robbed, stabbe­dand shot him dead.

Po­lice be­lieve Men­doza, 44, picked up two men at High Street, Princes Town, but it is un­cer­tain what hap­pened along the way.

Around 10.30 pm, of­fi­cers were on pa­trol when they saw Men­doza's Wingroad parked off a de­sert­ed road off Fifth Com­pa­ny, Sec­ond Branch Trace, In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga.The car's head­lights were on and a door was open. As the of­fi­cers ap­proached, two men jumped out the car and ran, po­lice said.

Fur­ther checks re­vealed blood in the back seatand when the of­fi­cers fol­lowed the bloody trail down­hill, they found Men­doza's body down aprecipice. His hands were tied and he had sev­er­al stab wounds in his chest.

A pho­to­graph of a blood­ied body with hand­cuffs was be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, but se­nior of­fi­cers de­nied Men­doza was hand­cuffed when he was found dead.

At the fam­i­ly's Poui Trace, Moru­ga home, Men­doza'saunt Mar­garet Lon­don said the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty was sad­dened by his un­time­ly death. She said Men­doza got laid off last year af­ter the $7.4 bil­lion­Solomon Ho­choy High­wayex­ten­sion project was shut down.

"Since then he try­ing­to make ends meet. He used to do a lit­tle con­struc­tion and he used to cut peo­ple yard with the weedwack­er. He loved his wife and his daugh­ters. He was a kind-heart­ed fam­i­ly man," Lon­don said, adding Men­doza was look­ing for­ward to cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas.

Men­doza's wife, Kristy, said they were sup­posed to start Christ­mas clean­ing yes­ter­day. The fam­i­ly had al­ready put up a Christ­mas tree and Men­doza hoped his fam­i­ly could en­joy a spe­cial Christ­mas with the ex­tra mon­ey he earned.

Kristy said Men­doza nev­er worked the grave­yard shift.

"He was care­ful not to work late. I went to church and he was sup­posed to pick me up at 9.30 pm. When he did not come I got wor­ried," Kristy said.

She said some­time lat­er she got a call that Men­doza was found dead. She said Men­doza nev­er re­ceived his out­stand­ing wages or his sev­er­ance pay­ments from OAS.

"Now he is gone and we have to find a way to cope with this," Kristy said.

Po­lice said they have not yet ar­rest­ed any­one in con­nec­tion with Men­doza's death. Any­one with in­for­ma­tion can con­tact CrimeStop­pers at 800-TIPS.

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA