Three months after a Claxton Bay mother fled her home after it was firebombed twice and shot at, she was murdered in Vistabella yesterday morning.
Grief-stricken relatives of 38-year-old Crystal Harricharan believe the police failed her, as she had desperately sought their help and protection.
They said her troubles began shortly after she had a dispute on New Year’s Eve with a resident over how she parked her car. As a result, she moved out of her home at Boodoo Trace Extension and left her children with relatives, while she stayed with her boyfriend at Jarvis Street in Vistabella.
Yesterday morning, she had planned to drop her boyfriend off at work and then pick up her son and nephew from their Claxton Bay home and take them to school. However, as she entered her car, a Suzuki SX4, shortly after 7 am, a man ran up to the driver’s window and fired several shots at her.
CCTV footage then shows him opening the driver’s door, ducking inside the car and firing more shots, before running back to a white B-15 and escaping. Harricharan died at the scene.
A relative who spoke at the scene on the condition of anonymity said Harricharan made numerous reports at the St Margaret’s Police Station.
“She had an incident on January 1 where her house get shoot. She house was firebombed; they never put she in a safe house, nothing. She went to the station, poor attitude when she gone to ask for help.”
He said Harricharan also told the police she was being followed.
“We realised we not getting any help in St Margaret’s so we went to Marabella. Marabella failed us. She talked to an officer upstairs the new building Police Administration) in San Fernando.”
However, the relative said police did not take her reports seriously.
“When she went to tell them about the second firebomb, they start to tell she what she coming here for; it under investigation, they can’t do nothing. So she was like, all yuh waiting for me to dead...”
He said he felt helpless knowing her life was at risk and he couldn’t do anything.
“It make me feel to do wrong and die too at the same time because it comes like you have no help,” he added.
Speaking to reporters at her Claxton Bay home, Harricharan’s older sister Waheeda Seenath also felt the police could have done more. Lamenting her sister asked the police for protection, she said, “She was real frightened for she life and she used to frighten for she children. That’s why she used to keep away from her children ...”
She said Harricharan dropped children to school for a living and was always cautious, as she suspected she was being followed.
Seenath said on Monday, her sister took cake and ice cream to her son’s school to celebrate his 10th birthday, while her daughter celebrated her 15th birthday last Monday.
Wiping away tears, she said, “I want justice for she, but the way how this law working, I don’t think we will get justice. Everything goes below the rug.”
A senior police officer confirmed Harricharan made several reports, but they could not find the suspect.