An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Shayana Ruiz was am­bushed and stabbed in the back, face, chest and hand dur­ing a dead­ly at­tack af­ter she went to col­lect an out­stand­ing debt of $4,500 from her for­mer boyfriend on Wednes­day.

Caught by sur­prise af­ter al­leged­ly be­ing stabbed by the man’s cur­rent girl­friend as they were ar­gu­ing, rel­a­tives who wit­nessed the in­ci­dent un­fold were hor­ri­fied as they watched the sus­pect plung­ing the knife in­to Ruiz’s body sev­er­al times.

Ruiz, 25, of Quar­ry Road, Diego Mar­tin, had gone to the Ed­in­burgh South, Ch­agua­nas home of her for­mer boyfriend around 5.30 pm on Sun­day to col­lect the cash, which she had loaned him be­fore their sep­a­ra­tion in De­cem­ber 2025.

Her rel­a­tives said Ruiz, an em­ploy­ee at Lit­tle Cae­sar’s, Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook, had been asked to col­lect the mon­ey.

It was al­leged that dur­ing a heat­ed ar­gu­ment be­tween Ruiz and the man, the sus­pect in­sert­ed her­self in the con­fronta­tion and lat­er al­leged­ly stabbed Ruiz mul­ti­ple times be­fore she and the man fled.

The two sus­pects have since been ap­pre­hend­ed.

Ruiz’s rel­a­tive, who had ac­com­pa­nied her to the man’s house, along with their dri­ver, rushed the bleed­ing woman to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where she died ten min­utes af­ter ar­rival.

Ruiz’s fa­ther, Kelvin Ruiz, yes­ter­day de­scribed his lone daugh­ter as “the type of per­son who would make every­body hap­py.”

“She was a very lov­ing per­son,” he said.

“If you an­gry or not, she go­ing to make yuh smile. She will bright­en up a room just by walk­ing in. All her friends right now in a mess be­cause of the type of per­son she was.”

He added, “She was mak­ing every­body hap­py, but who mak­ing she hap­py now?”

Re­call­ing the re­laxed and fun-filled mo­ments she had shared with him and her younger broth­er as they cooked to­geth­er sev­er­al days ago, he said the pain of hav­ing to bury a child had once again resur­faced.

Re­veal­ing his 25-year-old son Onas­sis was gunned down whilst dri­ving PH in Pic­ton, Laven­tille, eight years ago, Ruiz said he is now dread­ing that num­ber, as his re­main­ing child and last son is on­ly 22.

The fish­er­man said he checked on his chil­dren be­fore leav­ing home on Wednes­day morn­ing, and had been un­reach­able for most of the day un­til his re­turn in the evening, where he learned of what had hap­pened.

In­formed by his step­daugh­ter that Ruiz had been at­tacked and died at hos­pi­tal, he said, “Since that, the on­ly thing I do­ing is wait­ing for them to tell me to come down in the morgue and col­lect the body to start fu­ner­al arrange­ments.”

In­di­cat­ing the fam­i­ly was stand­ing with him yet again, he lament­ed, “It come like a re­peat for me. I went through that al­ready. Ain’t no way no par­ent could pre­pare for some­thing like that first time, far less for the sec­ond time.

“This is one pain that doh go way. Yuh does live with this pain and some­time yuh won’t be think­ing bout it, but yuh go down the road and see some­thing to re­mind yuh and it all come back.”

The el­der Ruiz said words of com­fort could nev­er erase the pain that had re­mained from the death of his first child, and had now been re-ig­nit­ed with his daugh­ter’s mur­der.

Asked if he was fa­mil­iar with Ruiz’s for­mer part­ner, he be­came emo­tion­al as he said, “I feel re­al hurt be­cause when he come here, I show he love. Me ain’t show he no hate or noth­ing.”

Ruiz said his daugh­ter had se­cured a $10,000 loan to con­struct a room for her­self last year, but end­ed up lend­ing her boyfriend $4,500.

He said the fe­male sus­pect should not have be­come em­broiled in the mat­ter.

“You kill some­body for a man that you didn’t even know how that mon­ey thing come about? That re­al un­fair. In my book, if you bor­row some­thing, re­gard­less of if yuh done or not, pay it back. Bor­row is bor­row, take is take. She nev­er give yuh it, she lend it to yuh.”

Claim­ing he him­self had reached out to Ruiz’s ex-boyfriend and ap­pealed to him to re­pay the mon­ey, Ruiz said when his daugh­ter be­gan re­ceiv­ing hate­ful and dis­gust­ing text mes­sages from the man, he ad­vised her to walk away.

Ruiz said while he could fore­tell some­thing was go­ing to hap­pen, he wasn’t ex­pect­ing such an out­come.

“I was ex­pect­ing they had a dis­pute, they quar­rel, that. But I didn’t ex­pect mur­der and some­body would kill my child ... that un­fair to me, for $4,500. That re­al hurt­ing me.”

He begged par­ents to con­tin­ue talk­ing to their chil­dren, as he stressed this cur­rent gen­er­a­tion was dif­fer­ent from that of his.

“In we time, we migh­ta cuff it out and go we way. But this gen­er­a­tion, they doh want to hear that. They go­ing to kill yuh. To all the par­ents, talk to yuh chil­dren, doh stop.”