More than a month after Samuel Montano and his girlfriend, Zaheeda Mohammed, vanished from Montano’s home, leaving behind a gruesome scene of blood and bullets, a relative says she is dissatisfied with how the police are handling the case.
While investigations are ongoing, the relative, who requested anonymity, said investigators still could not furnish them with any information about their disappearance or whether the bullets with TTPS markings found at the crime scene were genuine police ammunition.
Montano, 44, and Mohammed, 36, were last seen by a relative on August 2. The following morning, a relative went to Montano’s home at Sunset Cove Extension in La Romain to visit them, but instead she saw blood on the floor and sheets, with a trail leading from the house to the nearby shoreline. There were also several spent shells in the house. Police recovered 23 spent shell casings, including seven with TTPS markings.
Guardian Media was told that the police were initially looking into the possibility that their disappearance was linked to Montano’s money debt, but new information emerged that it was possibly linked to a firearm he allegedly had in his possession.
On August 4, divers from the T&T Coast Guard scoured the waters near Montano’s shoreline home, while cadaver dogs searched on land, but they turned up no significant leads.
Apart from this search operation, the relative said, there have been no other police-related activities in the area, nor has she been informed about any other search efforts.
Based on the blood and bullets found in the house, she said, they have accepted that the couple was most likely murdered.
“By watching that scene alone, it was not a kidnapping; it was a killing,” she said.
She said the families were trying to cope, but it has been difficult.
“We are sad. Every day go by, I continue to miss them,” she said, adding that it may be worse for Mohammed’s two children, ages 18 and 13, now that the school term has reopened.
Mohammed, she said, had planned to enrol her son in an MIC programme.
She questioned whether the discovery of TTPS-marked bullets in the house was being properly investigated.
“I don’t know how they are addressing it or if they just going to ignore that part of the facts, because we still waiting and we not hearing anything. We not seeing any patrol increase. We not hearing that they have a lead.”
Noting that her birthday, September 3, marked one month since their disappearance, she complained that the police were not doing enough.
“No police ever come back after that day, none at all,” she complained.
She said she was forced to cordon off Montano’s house because it had become a “murder museum” with people visiting to get photos and videos.
In a brief interview, Mohammed’s father, Ricky, was also dissatisfied with the police work.
Questioning why the matter was still being treated as a missing person, he said, “I find they could do something better than that.” Mohammed, of St John’s Village, San Fernando, worked at the San Fernando City Corporation.
Attempts to contact Commissioner of Police Allister Guevarro and ACP South/Central Wayne Mystar for a response were unsuccessful.
