Sascha Wilson
Less than 24 hours after she was held up at gunpoint and begged for her life, a Siparia KFC delivery driver was back at work.
"I have to work," said the 37-year-old worker, a single mother of two boys, ages 16 and 7, during a telephone interview yesterday. She is yet another delivery driver to be lured to a location by criminals disguised as customers and robbed.
In Mayaro on Sunday night, a 41-year-old delivery driver employed at the Mayaro KFC outlet was robbed by four suspects under similar circumstances. In this incident, three of the suspects were shot to death during an alleged shootout with the police while the fourth suspect escaped.
The single mother has been working at the outlet for almost a year. While it was the first time she had such a harrowing experience, she knew two other delivery drivers who faced similar circumstances.
The Siparia driver told the police that around 9:30 pm on Monday, she went to Quarry Settlement #2 in her Nissan March to do a delivery where she was robbed by three men, one of whom had a gun.
The woman who has requested that her name not be used for her safety said, "I thought that I was not going to make it. They came to kill." She recalled that a woman called the Siparia outlet and ordered a bucket of chicken and other items worth $220. When she got to the address she stopped in front of a house with lights. There were also street lights, she added. She met a young man but became worried as he took several minutes fiddling in his pockets for the money. "The boy taking long to take out the money from his pocket. He keep pushing his hand. I feel something fishy."
She locked her doors and rolled up the windows. She then put her car in reverse. "I tried to reverse and I end up in a ditch. I see two men come out from behind a white maxi." One of them had a gun. She pleaded for her life.
"One pointed a gun to my windscreen and he come around by my driver's side and pointed the gun. I start to bawl, 'I have no money, I have two children. I have nothing, is me alone, I have two children.' I start to pop my horn real hard and start to bawl'."
No one came to her aid.
Instead, the suspects opened her door. Terrified that they were going to shoot her, the woman added, "I say, 'Look take everything.'" They stole her $300, the company's $100, and a Blue cellphone belonging to KFC. The suspects also stole the KFC meal.
However, she said they saw a light further up the road and thought it was a police vehicle. "But nobody (no police) was there, like is God who saved me. I see one of them face so like they come to kill because the one who was digging in his pocket had nothing on his face," she added.
She returned to the KFC outlet where her colleagues calmed her down and advised her to go to the police station and make a report.
On her way there, she flagged down a police vehicle with police officers and soldiers and told them what had happened. They told her to go to the police station.
Still shaken over the incident, she said she needed her job to put food on the table. She has told her superiors that she only wants to work the 10 am to 6 pm shift. "I not working in the night again. They say they will see what they could do."
Up to yesterday afternoon, no suspects were arrested. When contacted Vice President of KFC and Pizza Hut Roger Rambharose declined to comment on the incidents, saying they were under police investigation. He, however, said that the company was taking measures to ensure added safety for their staff.