KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors are try­ing to de­ter­mine the mo­tive be­hind a “hit” car­ried out on a Chi­nese busi­ness­man at his su­per­mar­ket in Princes Town yes­ter­day.

While the mur­der of Chen Zhi Zhong, 24, was be­ing linked to the “Chi­nese mafia”, in­ves­ti­ga­tors last evening said they were yet to gath­er enough ev­i­dence to de­ter­mine a mo­tive.

A re­port stat­ed that just af­ter mid­day, Chen was sit­ting next to the cashier when his killer walked in­to the Karvill Su­per­mar­ket Ltd along Man­a­ham­bre Road yes­ter­day and car­ried out the brazen at­tack.

The killer was bare­foot­ed and wore a black Nike Jump­man hood­ie. He ap­proached the cashier with a bot­tle of Minute Maid or­ange juice. CCTV footage showed the gun­man wan­der­ing around the area, check­ing out the snack shelves near the cashier for sev­er­al min­utes as oth­er cus­tomers shopped.

When the su­per­mar­ket cleared up, the gun­man spoke to Chen briefly be­fore pulling out a gun and shoot­ing him in his face. The gun­man then ran out of the su­per­mar­ket and en­tered a sil­ver hatch­back that was wait­ing for him a few build­ings away.

Chen was tak­en to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he lat­er died.

A team of South­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing Sgt Ram­roop, Sgt Williams and PC Ram­cha­ran, were on the scene gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion when the T&T Guardian ar­rived on the scene. Up to late yes­ter­day, the sus­pect had not been found.

There was talk that a con­tract killer from Tar­o­dale Gar­dens, Ste Madeleine, who is want­ed by po­lice in re­la­tion to sev­er­al oth­er mur­ders in the South­ern Di­vi­sion, was the sus­pect. How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said they were still work­ing to de­ter­mine the killer’s iden­ti­ty.

Chen, a Chi­nese na­tion­al, had been liv­ing in T&T for sev­er­al years and opened the su­per­mar­ket three year’s ago in a build­ing that he rent­ed from a Princes Town fam­i­ly.

His killing was one of two which oc­curred with­in hours of each oth­er yes­ter­day.

In the oth­er in­ci­dent, 21-year-old Tye­sha De Sousa was stabbed to death by a man who chased her down in the heart of Port-of-Spain be­fore killing her.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 3.50 am, De Sousa of Trou Macaque, Laven­tille, was in a ve­hi­cle dri­ven by a 31-year-old man along Char­lotte Street, Port of Spain, near the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice said the two re­port­ed­ly got in­to a heat­ed ar­gu­ment and the ve­hi­cle ran off the road­way and crashed in­to a wall. De Sousa re­port­ed­ly ran out of the car and the dri­ver, now armed with a knife, chased af­ter her. The woman’s at­tack­er even­tu­al­ly caught up to her and stabbed her sev­er­al times. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, a mem­ber of the T&T De­fence Force who was near­by, went to De Sousa’s as­sis­tance and sub­dued her at­tack­er. She was lat­er tak­en to the near­by hos­pi­tal The sus­pect was in cus­tody last evening be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed by Homi­cide Bu­reau in­ves­ti­ga­tors.