Rhon­dor Dowlat

Min­utes af­ter he told a teenage rel­a­tive he was go­ing to get a meal and go to church, a man in­stead showed up at Car­lene Grant's work­place and stabbed her sev­er­al times be­fore tak­ing a sledge­ham­mer and bash­ing in the side of her head.

Grant, 48, a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer em­ployed with the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS), was tak­en to the Cou­va Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal but was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

She was car­ry­ing out her night du­ties along with an­oth­er of­fi­cer at the Wa­ter­loo Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, cor­ner of But­ler Vil­lage Road and the Wa­ter­loo Main Road, when at about 7.30 pm she was con­front­ed by her es­tranged male rel­a­tive.The man, ac­cord­ing to an eye­wit­ness, be­gan to quar­rel with Grant and then turned phys­i­cal when he cuffed her sev­er­al times.

"I just saw the man take out a knife and stab her up. He then ran to the trunk of the car and took out a sledge­ham­mer and smashed the side of her head. She tried to brace but her fin­gers were crushed in the process," the eye­wit­ness said.

The eye­wit­ness added that Grant's col­league, who at­tempt­ed to save her from the at­tack­er, was al­so threat­ened. The man then got in his car and drove off. He lat­er sur­ren­dered to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day while at Grant's home at John Elie Road, Chase Vil­lage, Cara­pichaima , Grant's teenage daugh­ter, Tisha, said she had left home to pur­chase a meal for her broth­er when she was of­fered a drop by the rel­a­tive to St Mary's Junc­tion.

"I took the drop with him and on the way he told me that he was go­ing to church but if his gas tank wasn't so long he would not have been go­ing St Mary's side to give me the drop there by KFC. He said he was gong to fill up on gas and then go to church so I told him make sure he goes," Tisha said with tears rolling down her eyes.

"Be­fore I came out of his ve­hi­cle he told me that one of these days my moth­er will bounce her head and she would not know want hap­pen. Lit­tle did I know that he was go­ing to harm my own moth­er and not re­al­ly go­ing to church like he said be­cause I spoke to peo­ple in the church and they told me he nev­er went."

Asked what caused the man to at­tack her moth­er, Tisha dis­closed that her moth­er had told him that their re­la­tion­ship was stag­nant.

"He didn't want to take no for an an­swer. They were to­geth­er about 11 years now and about one year now their re­la­tion­ship was very rocky but he didn't want to leave her alone," Tisha said.She added it was not the first time the man had gone to Grant's place of work for a con­fronta­tion.

"He used to al­ways go and quar­rel with her and she made sev­er­al re­ports to the po­lice but the po­lice nev­er did any­thing to help the sit­u­a­tion," she added.

Grant's broth­er, Kevin, de­scribed his sis­ter as a well re­spect­ed in­di­vid­ual.

"She was al­ways smil­ing and a very hap­py per­son. In fact she was so look­ing for­ward for her first grand­child. Her daugh­ter-in-law is sev­en months preg­nant and she used to come and anoint her bel­ly and talk to the ba­by. She was over ex­cit­ed. Mow she will nev­er get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet her first grand," Kevin added.

He said he be­lieved the man pre-med­i­tat­ed the en­tire at­tack and called for jus­tice for his sis­ter. He even dis­closed that many times he, him­self had cause to de­fend his sis­ter from the man.

"Just on Sun­day, the man sit down with my sis­ter and oth­er rel­a­tives and talk­ing about killing. We have re­al ev­i­dence against him... voice notes and mes­sages too," Kevin said.

Blood stains still on wall

There was an MTS guard sta­tioned at the Wa­ter­loo Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre yes­ter­day but he was re­luc­tant to speak. The blood stains were still on the wall of the guard booth and there was a pool of blood, hard­ened and stained on the paved ground.

A fire truck ar­rived short­ly af­ter 3 pm and backed up in the yard of the cen­tre. A fire of­fi­cer came out and be­gan spray­ing wa­ter on the blood stains but when he spot­ted a T&T Guardian pho­tog­ra­ph­er, the fire of­fi­cer packed up the hose and re-en­tered the truck.

His col­leagues al­so quick­ly got in and the dri­ver quick­ly drove off, leav­ing the job in­com­plete and the blood still pooled and stained on the ground at the en­trance gate.

When asked why the fire of­fi­cers left be­fore com­plet­ing the job, the guard on du­ty ges­tic­u­lat­ed and shook his head.