Sascha Wilson
“Daddy come and help me before I die,” texted Levi Lewis to his father’s phone at 12.45 am on May 10, moments before he died.
The 12-year-old child sent the SOS message to his father either during or after a brutal attack at his home which also claimed his mother’s life.
However, his message only registered on his father’s phone hours later, long after he and his mother Abeo Cudjoe, 30, were dead.
By this time, his father, Neil Lewis, had already received the tragic news.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Lewis said about 15 minutes before his wife saw his son’s message, a friend had already come to his home and told him his son had been murdered.
Recalling his reaction when he saw the text, Lewis said, “I almost faint, yes.”
Had he received the message, Lewis said he would have immediately left his Couva home and gone to his son’s rescue.
He lamented, “I done start my car and fly down there already and try to save my child. If I get that text I out the door. I is a father, I is a man not playing. Look how much people dying out here, lil children all in river and thing, dropping.”
He explained that the message eventually came through around 6 am.
“That text did not come through to my phone at that time. My wife see the text first and then call me,” he said.
“The text did not come through because how he text me on WiFi. That man (son) get stab in he neck and still text me. Multiple stabs to neck and still text me and still run by his grandfather.”
Noting that Levi was the eldest of his four children, Lewis said Levi was strong and healthy.
“I train him militant...he is a footballer,” he said proudly.
Adding that he is very protective of his children, he recalled that his wife had made pizza for Levi at their home on Mother’s Day before he dropped him off at Cudjoe’s home in Penal.
Levi had spent about a month at his father’s home. He would have been graduating soon from the St Dominic’s RC School, having sat the Secondary Entrance Assessment exam recently.
Cudjoe, Levi and her other son, age three, were at their Latchoos Road home when their front door was forced open during the early hours of the morning on May 10.
Cudjoe, a pig farmer, and Levi were stabbed and chopped. Cudjoe’s other child, a three-year-old boy, was spared.
Bleeding from a gaping wound to the neck, Levi ran about a quarter-mile to his grandfather’s (Cudjoe’s father) home for help. Levi was rushed to the Siparia Health Facility, where he died.
His mother’s blood-soaked body was found on the floor of their home with multiple wounds. An autopsy performed at the Forensic Science Centre concluded that Levi suffered a single stab wound to the neck.
His mother, however, suffered a stab wound to the neck, chops and incise wounds to the upper and lower limbs.
Based on the report, detectives say there is a possibility that there was more than one murder weapon.
A single funeral service will be held for both mother and son at Boodoo’s Funeral Home. While funeral details are still being ironed out, the funeral is expected to be held at the end of this week.
A 35-year-old soldier who surrendered to police on Wednesday was released from custody on Sunday. The soldier was represented by attorneys Kiran Panday and Surya Deonarine. Up to yesterday afternoon, investigators had no new information, persons of interest or suspects in the murders.
Investigations are continuing.
