RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hope turned to heart­break for the fam­i­ly of 30-year-old nurse O’delle Lal­man-Bap­tiste, who was kid­napped dur­ing a road­side rob­bery in Carlsen Field, Ch­agua­nas, on Fri­day. She was lat­er found dead, her throat slit and her body bear­ing mul­ti­ple stab wounds.

Po­lice lat­er in­ter­cept­ed the stolen ve­hi­cle and fa­tal­ly shot one of the two sus­pects dur­ing a chase along the Churchill–Roo­sevelt High­way, Ari­ma, near the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre. The sec­ond sus­pect re­mains at large.

The in­ci­dent be­gan around 11 pm on Fri­day when car deal­er Math­ias Bap­tiste and his wife, Lal­man-Bap­tiste, were dri­ving their white Hyundai H-100 van, val­ued at $167,000, along Hos­pi­tal Road, Carlsen Field.

Bap­tiste told po­lice he stopped to uri­nate when a black Nis­san X-Trail pulled up be­side them. Two men, dressed in dark cloth­ing and armed with firearms, ex­it­ed the ve­hi­cle to rob them.

Bap­tiste was re­lieved of $1,500 in cash, a black Sam­sung Galaxy A05 smart­phone val­ued at $1,200, and a white iPhone 16 worth $3,500. The sus­pects then forced Lal­man-Bap­tiste in­to the ve­hi­cle and drove off in a norther­ly di­rec­tion.

Around 11.30 pm, of­fi­cers from the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force East re­ceived live GPS co­or­di­nates of the stolen van and be­gan track­ing the ve­hi­cle, which was seen trav­el­ling south near Ari­ma. The of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed the ve­hi­cle along the Cara­po Main Road. A chase en­sued on­to the Churchill–Roo­sevelt High­way, where the ve­hi­cle veered on­to the wrong lane and crashed in­to a drain near the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre.

Two armed men ex­it­ed the van and ran in­to near­by bush­es. One of them opened fire on the of­fi­cers, who re­turned fire in keep­ing with TTPS’s use-of-force pol­i­cy. One sus­pect was hit and fell to the ground. An ob­ject re­sem­bling a firearm was found near­by. He was tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was pro­nounced dead by Dr Ash­ton. The sec­ond sus­pect es­caped on foot and is still on the run.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­trieved spent shells, a Glock firearm fit­ted with a mag­a­zine, and 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion. Sev­er­al po­lice units re­spond­ed, in­clud­ing the Air Sup­port Unit, Ca­nine Unit, Guard and Emer­gency Branch, Ari­ma CID, and the Homi­cide Bu­reau. The stolen van was wrecked and tak­en in­to cus­tody by po­lice.

Lal­man-Bap­tiste’s body was lat­er found near the orig­i­nal scene of the ab­duc­tion. She ap­peared to have been stabbed and her throat slit. In­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect she may have been killed short­ly af­ter be­ing tak­en and are ex­plor­ing whether the crime may have been a tar­get­ed hit.

A close rel­a­tive of the vic­tim told Guardian Me­dia that he spoke with her dai­ly and was un­aware of any is­sues.

“She was a nurse. Mar­ried a lit­tle more than two years. We are very close. The ba­by re­cent­ly turned three,” he said.

He al­so con­firmed that Lal­man-Bap­tiste showed no signs of fear or dis­tress in their re­cent con­ver­sa­tions.

“We speak every day. The ba­by is by us for a few days, so she would video call two to three times a day to check in,” he said.

The rel­a­tive said he was not in­formed about the full ex­tent of her in­juries.

“The po­lice didn’t let us come too close. We weren’t near enough to see or hear ex­act­ly what hap­pened to her body,” he added.

The SWRHA ex­pressed sad­ness yes­ter­day up­on learn­ing of “the trag­ic cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of Lal­man-Bap­tiste. The au­thor­i­ty ex­tends its con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, loved ones, and col­leagues of the de­ceased. They said that “coun­selling sup­port ser­vices have been made avail­able to those who worked close­ly with her.”

Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing their search for the sec­ond sus­pect. Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on Lal­man-Bap­tiste’s death can con­tact Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.