An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A 61-year-old pen­sion­er, who was re­cov­er­ing from eye surgery, was found dead at her Ari­ma house fol­low­ing an al­leged home in­va­sion on Mon­day.

The body of Leela Hy­acinth Danclar was dis­cov­ered in her ran­sacked bed­room by po­lice of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed to a call from rel­a­tives who were un­able to reach her.

She was found ly­ing on the floor with a pil­low over her face and a sheet par­tial­ly cov­er­ing her body.

No ap­par­ent marks of vi­o­lence were seen about the body, ex­cept for blood found smeared around her gen­i­tal re­gion.

Danclar’s 90-year-old moth­er, who suf­fers from ad­vanced de­men­tia and al­so lives in the house, lo­cat­ed at John Shaw Av­enue, was found un­harmed in an­oth­er bed­room.

Sgt Kevin Ash­ing, of the Court and Process Branch in Port-of-Spain, who lives near­by, was con­tact­ed by Danclar’s rel­a­tive on Mon­day evening, af­ter calls to her cell phone went unan­swered.

Danclar un­der­went eye surgery at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal on Sun­day, fol­low­ing which she re­turned home to re­cu­per­ate.

The fe­male rel­a­tive re­port­ed­ly vis­it­ed Danclar at least twice dai­ly to drop off food and oth­er sup­plies for her and her moth­er.

The rel­a­tive al­leged­ly con­tact­ed Ash­ing af­ter be­ing un­able to reach Danclar, fol­low­ing which he sought help from of­fi­cers at the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion around 4.50 pm on Mon­day.

Re­spond­ing of­fi­cers found the front gate pad­locked on the in­side.

The lock was re­moved and of­fi­cers were able to gain en­try to the house, where they lat­er found Danclar’s body ly­ing on the bed­room floor.

It was not known up to yes­ter­day if any items had been stolen from the house.

Neigh­bours shocked

and scared

A man who knew Danclar yes­ter­day begged for an­swers.

He said it was a sad and hor­ri­fy­ing end, “for a woman who nev­er did any­thing to any­one and for that to come and hap­pen to her.”

He asked, “What we re­al­ly liv­ing in? What re­al­ly go­ing on?”

Call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to act im­me­di­ate­ly, the an­gry man said un­em­ploy­ment was to blame, as it was forc­ing good peo­ple to be­come crim­i­nals.

He said, “A man who don’t want to rob some­body ... if you hear your child cry in the night for some­thing to eat, you will go and rob some­body. You could stand the pres­sure but your child un­der pres­sure.”

The sad­dened man de­scribed Danclar as a “very, very nice la­dy.”

He said the neigh­bours were ac­cus­tomed to see­ing Danclar in her front yard, tend­ing to her beloved flower plants, fruit and palm trees.

The vic­tim’s house boast­ed bur­glar-proofed win­dows and en­trances, while ra­zor-wire ringed the perime­ter walls and front fence.

An­oth­er neigh­bour said the Danclar fam­i­ly were ex­treme­ly pri­vate peo­ple. She de­scribed the vic­tim as some­one who was, “a very qui­et per­son who was on­ly seen com­ing in and com­ing out to go to work.”

The neigh­bour said res­i­dents were anx­ious and ap­pre­hen­sive fol­low­ing Danclar’s death.

“Last night (Mon­day) I was so scared be­cause to have it so close to home.”

Guardian Me­dia was told that a neigh­bour­hood watch had been formed sev­er­al months ago, fol­low­ing re­ports of bur­glar­ies and break-ins in the area.

The group has since been re­spon­si­ble for the in­stal­la­tion of lights through­out the neigh­bour­hood, and is in the process of hav­ing CCTV cam­eras in­stalled as well af­ter they ob­served strange ve­hi­cles in the area.

Some res­i­dents have al­so re­port­ed­ly armed them­selves with air horns so they can sound an alarm if they see or hear any­thing strange.

Nine killed in home in­va­sions up to June 30

Sta­tis­tics from the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) Branch of T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in­di­cate nine peo­ple were killed dur­ing home in­va­sions up to June 30 this year. For the same pe­ri­od last year, the fig­ure stood at four.

A to­tal of 213 home in­va­sions were said to have oc­curred dur­ing Jan­u­ary to June 30; com­pared to 216 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

TTARP: Cit­i­zens need to know how to pro­tect them­selves

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­tired Per­sons (TTARP), Reynold Coop­er said the TTPS had a cru­cial role to play in pro­tect­ing all cit­i­zens.

Claim­ing over 40 re­tirees had lost their lives with­in the last 20 months dur­ing var­i­ous in­ci­dents, Coop­er said, “That is an alarm­ing fig­ure.”

He said the po­lice need­ed to ed­u­cate peo­ple on how, “They can pro­tect them­selves with­in the le­gal frame­work.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that many se­nior cit­i­zens tend to live alone af­ter spous­es die and chil­dren mar­ry and move out – the TTARP head said they had 11 zones with nine in Trinidad and two in To­ba­go; where mem­bers were tasked to can­vass each zone care­ful­ly and thor­ough­ly, list­ing the lo­ca­tions of se­nior cit­i­zens that live alone.

He said part of the man­date for these zones was for of­fi­cials to, “Try and vis­it them.”

Coop­er said it was not on­ly about en­sur­ing the phys­i­cal safe­ty of se­nior cit­i­zens but al­so as­sur­ing their health and well-be­ing as many suf­fered from ail­ments such as di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion.

He ad­vised all cit­i­zens to keep the num­bers of all po­lice sta­tions close at hand; and to get an air horn to sound if their homes were in­vad­ed, among oth­er mea­sures.