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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Children see mother, elder sister murdered

by

1692 days ago
20201121
ABC Flower shop owner Roshni Sandy.

ABC Flower shop owner Roshni Sandy.

The fa­ther of the three chil­dren who sur­vived Thurs­day night’s am­bush in which gun­men killed their moth­er and el­der step­sis­ter is long­ing to be re­unit­ed with them. How­ev­er, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty will con­tin­ue to keep the chil­dren in its care un­til the ap­pro­pri­ate time, as there are sev­er­al in­ter­ven­tions and help lined up for them.

Nank­ishore Bis­soon, the fa­ther of the chil­dren and wid­ow­er to Sandy Khan, 37, told rel­a­tives yes­ter­day that he is not sure when he will be able to see his chil­dren again but un­der­stands why the po­lice took them away from the scene on Thurs­day. 

Bis­soon, who was said to be still in shock over the in­ci­dent, plead­ed with his neigh­bours to as­sist the po­lice with any in­for­ma­tion that might help them in solv­ing the mur­ders.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the au­thor­i­ty’s Pub­lic Ed­u­ca­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er Cheryl Moses-Williams said the chil­dren re­main trau­ma­tised, “which is why be­fore any in­ter­ven­tion takes place, we need to sta­bilise them.” She, how­ev­er, as­sured that phys­i­cal­ly they are good.

“They are pro­cess­ing… in fact quite ac­tive…but as our psy­chol­o­gists note…the chil­dren will ex­pe­ri­ence a range of emo­tions and we need to al­low them to process and ex­pe­ri­ence them,” Moses-Williams said.

She said in the in­ter­im, the au­thor­i­ty will eval­u­ate the chil­dren’s needs to de­ter­mine the ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­ven­tion, which in­cludes ther­a­peu­tic and coun­selling.

“How­ev­er, this will be based on their needs and age be­cause they are of vary­ing ages.”

As per­tains to long-term care, Moses-Williams said the au­thor­i­ty will be look­ing at their sup­port cir­cle to iden­ti­fy any suit­able in­di­vid­ual, who, af­ter be­ing as­sessed for their suit­abil­i­ty, will be grant­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to care for the chil­dren.

Police officers on the scene where two women were shot and killed at Dynasty Drive, Joyce Road, Chaguanas, yesterday.

Police officers on the scene where two women were shot and killed at Dynasty Drive, Joyce Road, Chaguanas, yesterday.

RHONDOR DOWLAT

“The au­thor­i­ty will al­so sup­port those per­sons by help­ing them build their ca­pac­i­ty to pro­vide for the needs of the chil­dren,” she said.

Moses-Williams said the au­thor­i­ty will al­so pro­vide sup­port to the po­lice as part of their crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“We will al­so col­lab­o­rate with oth­er agen­cies with­in the child pro­tec­tion sec­tor to en­sure that the chil­dren get the best pos­si­ble care and pro­tec­tion. There will be on­go­ing mon­i­tor­ing by the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.” 

Yes­ter­day at the chil­dren’s Caripichaima home, where the am­bush took place, po­lice spent hours talk­ing with fam­i­ly mem­bers and neigh­bours.

A neigh­bour, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said the area is usu­al­ly qui­et but of­ten­times they heard quar­relling com­ing from Khan’s home.

“All the time we will hear quar­relling and fight­ing but still we do not know if the mur­ders are linked do­mes­tic or oth­er­wise be­cause Sandy was the own­er of a very pop­u­lar flower shop in Cunu­pia and her daugh­ter Steffy worked with her and her fa­ther’s bar­be­cue and grill stop right there at Jern­ing­ham Junc­tion in Cunu­pia,” the neigh­bour said.

“That night we saw noth­ing strange but heard the shots which ini­tial­ly sound­ed like bam­boo bussing but then we saw Steffy’s boyfriend cov­ered in blood walk­ing down the street and get­ting in­to a car with an­oth­er Span­ish and dri­ving off. We on­ly re­alised that some­thing hap­pened when we saw the man (Bis­soon, Sandy’s hus­band) and his three chil­dren stand­ing up in the yard. Like they were now re­vers­ing out of the yard when the gun­men walked up to them and shot all three of them. The gun­men then es­caped in await­ing ve­hi­cle.”

Stephanie Khan was shot and killed along with her mother.

Stephanie Khan was shot and killed along with her mother.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 7.21 pm on Thurs­day, the first re­spon­ders found Khan (Sandy) ly­ing out­side the front dri­ver’s door and Steffy in the left rear pas­sen­ger seat. Both women were shot sev­er­al times by two gun­men wear­ing masks who walked up to the ve­hi­cle as it was about to re­verse out of the yard.

 The dri­ver, a 20-year-old Venezue­lan man of Munroe Road, Cunu­pia, was al­so shot mul­ti­ple times but es­caped and got help from an­oth­er Venezue­lan man who took him to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty for treat­ment. He was sub­se­quent­ly trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope and is cur­rent­ly ward­ed in a se­ri­ous con­di­tion.

The three mi­nors—all girls, ages eight, sev­en and one—were stand­ing in the yard at the time of the shoot­ing and were said to have wit­nessed it. How­ev­er, they weren’t hurt dur­ing the am­bush. Po­lice of­fi­cers took them to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion and they are now in the care of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty pend­ing en­quires. At the scene, po­lice found five spent 9 mm shells.

A mo­tive is yet to be de­ter­mined for the dou­ble mur­der.


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