Sexual predators and serial rapists are on the loose and women need to be educated on how they operate, says crime researcher Daurius Figueira.
"More and more, evidence is coming out to show sexual predators are in the environment hunting for victims," Figueira, who has been researching crime since 1978, told the T&T Guardian.
He was responding to questions on the killing of 16-year old North Eastern College student, Rachael Ramkissoon. An autopsy yesterday stated she was strangled.
"What predators like is the thrill of the hunt and the victims are women," he said.
Figueira said in the US sexual predators target sex workers, illegal migrants and runaways but in T&T the men are bolder, going after anyone. He said the murder of Ramkissoon last Friday and 20-year old bank clerk Shannon Banfield in December have deeply disturbed and alarmed him.
Banfield's body was discovered on December 8 on the upper floor of the IAM & Company building on Charlotte Street, Port-of-Spain, a home goods store where she had gone to purchase items. An employee has since been arrested and charged.
Figueira described the long stretch of road in rural Talparo with high woods leading to the Arena Dam where Ramkissoon was found as "predatorville". He said in the case of Ramkissoon, there were two possible scenarios.
"One, he may have been someone she knew who had been marking her and already chosen her as a victim, or it could be a classic case where he was moving around the road and saw Rachael," he said
Figueira said some predators are skilled in charming people.
He explained:"There are predators whose mouths would be dripping honey and who would initially come across as 'good' men."
Figueira, who goes all over T&T in his research, identified a cemetery in a village off Chaguanas as another "predator's paradise" where they mark the movements of women in the area, then make their move.
"Sexual predators do not choose women randomly. There are specific things about women that attract them," he said.
A Chandanagore resident recently reported to the Chaguanas Police an incident in which a man in a black car with white upholstery, offered her a ride home. She said he tried to attack her but she jumped out the car and ran home.
She later learned that residents had seen him parked often in a cemetery.
Figueira said more reports of this kind of crime are coming out of central Trinidad because predators prefer to operate in wide, open spaces.
"Certain pieces of geography attract them. There are a number of reports of women from central who gets into taxis, most times PH, who were attacked but escaped," he said.
"The question is how many experienced this and did not report it, and how many did not make it."
Figueira said there may be a link between the increasing number of missing people and sexual crimes. He said he is still researching this new type of violent sex crime but said it might be related to the collapse of social order in in the country "where anything goes and there is no sense of right and wrong anymore."
He said a special sex crimes unit is needed in the Police Service and Government can assist in the area of public transport, particularly in rural areas where registered taxis stop working after a certain hour.