Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The day­light killings of two women in­side a Cou­va beau­ty spa have left neigh­bour­ing busi­ness own­ers and res­i­dents shak­en, with many ques­tion­ing their safe­ty amid the coun­try’s ris­ing crime rate.

When Guardian Me­dia re­turned to Vener­is Plaza, along the South­ern Main Road, yes­ter­day, two days af­ter the killings, a sense of un­ease was ev­i­dent among those who work and live in the area.

Pro­pri­etor of SO­HO Beau­ty Haven, Kavi­ta De­osaran, 55, and her cus­tomer, Cheryl Dixon, 67, were shot dead in­side the busi­ness on Wednes­day. The plaza hous­es ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten busi­ness­es, in­clud­ing a school for chil­dren with spe­cial needs, a restau­rant and an op­ti­cal busi­ness.

Yes­ter­day, the gate at the en­trance to the stair­case lead­ing to the plaza’s up­per floors, which was used by the killer to es­cape, was locked. Ten­ants said this was among the rec­om­men­da­tions made by a se­cu­ri­ty firm con­tract­ed to as­sess the plaza’s se­cu­ri­ty and sug­gest im­prove­ments.

Ad­di­tion­al mea­sures, in­clud­ing elec­tron­ic se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems, are ex­pect­ed to be im­ple­ment­ed next week.

Sev­er­al busi­ness own­ers ex­pressed con­cern about their safe­ty and that of their cus­tomers. Busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty ap­peared slow­er than usu­al, with one pro­pri­etor not­ing that the es­tab­lish­ment would or­di­nar­i­ly at­tract more cus­tomers. The dam­age to the spa was al­so still vis­i­ble, with the bul­let hole in its glass win­dow yet to be re­paired.

One busi­ness­man de­scribed the killings as nerve-rack­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause they oc­curred so close to his busi­ness.

“You must feel a lit­tle shaky, but at the end of the day, life has to go on. But it was so sad to hear two peo­ple die right next door. And we are right over here, you know. It’s ter­ri­ble.”

He said the in­ci­dent was a re­minder that mur­ders could hap­pen any­where and at any time.

“It could even hap­pen over here, too. Peo­ple are re­al­ly feel­ing un­safe in this coun­try, boy.”

The busi­ness­man be­lieves the loss of jobs and in­come fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery has con­tributed to ris­ing crime, ar­gu­ing that eco­nom­ic hard­ship has left some peo­ple des­per­ate.

He al­so sup­port­ed the Cou­va/Point Fortin Cham­ber of Com­merce’s call for in­creased po­lice pres­ence and pa­trols through­out the dis­trict, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the Christ­mas sea­son ap­proach­ing.

Mean­while, 70-year-old res­i­dent Har­ry Lall, who reg­u­lar­ly pass­es the plaza on his way to and from home, said he was sad­dened and shocked by the killings.

Point­ing to the sev­er­al busi­ness­es in the area and the po­lice sta­tion’s close prox­im­i­ty, he lament­ed: “Peo­ple are safe no more.”

He blamed pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ments for what he de­scribed as the coun­try’s de­te­ri­o­ra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the de­cline in em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“They de­stroy every­thing where the em­ploy­ment is; Ca­roni Ltd had the most em­ploy­ees. They de­stroy every­thing in this coun­try. Politi­cians dis­man­tle the whole coun­try,” he com­plained.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are con­tin­u­ing ef­forts to es­tab­lish a mo­tive for the dou­ble mur­der.