RHONDOR DOWLAT
Senior Reporter
rhondor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt
Roma Latchman, the daughter-in-law of Balraj Latchman, 66, who was killed in an accident on the Uriah Butler Highway in Caroni on Monday night, is pleading with the police to get answers on what led to Latchman’s death that night.
“The family really need answers. We don’t know what really happened. All we know was that he was trying to cross to maybe to find his way home,” she said yesterday.
Asked if the relative Latchman had visited their home since the incident, she said: “No, we never saw him. He never came around to say anything or for us to ask anything, that’s why maybe the police can help. But so far, the police not saying anything to us really, all they telling us is for us to be around for the autopsy. Nothing else.”
Roma described Latchman as a family man and one who loved his eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
“He was a very good person but it is so tragic that his life would have ended like this. We would have accepted the fact if he had gotten sick and died but not like this,” she said.
“My father-in-law was a family man and when he got grandchildren, he forgot his own children in a way and focused on them. Last week a relative died and he was by the family every day since. It’s just that one day he didn’t show up but we would remember him as being there for his family.”
Asked if relatives visited the scene of the accident, Roma said: “That said night we were there. We had to park on the northbound lane and cross but at that time there was plenty traffic. But that part of the highway is very long and the lighting that night wasn’t so bright. We had to walk a good distance and then cross. But that’s all I can remember because what we saw that night was very terrible and sad.”
Roma said she was the one who took care of Latchman after his open-heart surgery.
Latchman lived alone at Carlsen Field, Chaguanas.
According to a police report, at about 7 pm, a driver said he was heading north along the highway on the left lane, near the Guayamare Bridge, when he heard a noise on the right front side of his vehicle. He then saw a man falling on the road.
Several other vehicles then drove over the body of the man, dragging him 300 feet north.
The driver told police he stopped a short distance away and tried to stop the oncoming traffic but he was unable to.
Relatives said they are still waiting on the autopsy to be conducted and hope it will be done on Thursday.
The T&T Police Service has since issued a release asking members of the public to stop sharing the video of Latchman’s dismemberment on social media, as investigations are continuing.
