An­gry rel­a­tives and vil­lagers in Williamsville yes­ter­day crit­i­cised the po­lice for al­leged­ly fail­ing to re­spond to a re­port about a masked man lurk­ing in the bush­es short­ly be­fore the mur­der of 40-year-old Al­lan Sama­roo.

Had the po­lice re­spond­ed prompt­ly, they be­lieve of­fi­cers might have scared off the killer and saved Sama­roo’s life. While fam­i­ly, friends, and in­ves­ti­ga­tors tried to un­earth the rea­son be­hind his mur­der, they agreed that the killer would have known his rou­tine. As he did most morn­ings, Sama­roo walked out of his Es­mer­al­da Branch Trace home to wait for his em­ploy­er, the own­er of a ceil­ing com­pa­ny, to pick him up for work at the junc­tion. Short­ly af­ter he ar­rived, around 7 am, a loud ex­plo­sion was heard, and neigh­bours found him ly­ing on the road, bleed­ing from a gun­shot wound to the head. The sus­pect had been hid­ing in the near­by bush­es.

About an hour ear­li­er, a res­i­dent claimed he saw a masked man, dressed in a cov­er­all, lurk­ing in the bush­es. He called out to the sus­pect, who ran off. The neigh­bour then called the po­lice, but no one re­spond­ed.

Speak­ing at their home, Sama­roo’s wife, Keisha, said her hus­band was in good spir­its when he left home.

“I watched him un­til I couldn’t see him again... It was a rou­tine for him to walk out to the bot­tom of the hill to get trans­porta­tion to wher­ev­er the job is,” she re­called. She then went to or­gan­ise their six-year-old daugh­ter for school. Short­ly af­ter, some­one told her that he had col­lapsed on the road. When she ar­rived, he was al­ready dead.

Ex­press­ing dis­gust over what she called the po­lice’s fail­ure to re­spond to the re­port about a sus­pi­cious man in the area, the griev­ing woman said, “These po­lice came af­ter Al­lan was shot. That’s when the po­lice showed up in their num­bers.” She was cer­tain that her hus­band nei­ther had en­e­mies nor re­ceived any death threats, nor was he in­volved in any ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties.

She de­scribed him as a hum­ble, jol­ly, and fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed man. Rel­a­tives said he was look­ing for­ward to the open­ing of the hunt­ing sea­son and had al­ready se­cured his per­mit. While she is hop­ing to get an­swers and jus­tice, Sama­roo’s wife said she was not con­fi­dent she would get it from the TTPS.

“Jus­tice? If the po­lice took so long (to re­spond) would we get jus­tice? Nev­er. Poor. Fail­ure... Plen­ty oth­er young peo­ple went through this and did not get jus­tice, why would I get jus­tice?”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the TTPS about the res­i­dents’ and rel­a­tives’ claims but got no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day evening. Mean­while, of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion III had not de­ter­mined a mo­tive for the mur­der.