Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Ka­ia Sealy is break­ing her si­lence on manslaugh­ter and shoot­ing with in­tent charges to be laid against her, say­ing she is not a gang­ster, has nev­er owned a gun and re­mains in dis­be­lief over the en­tire sit­u­a­tion sur­round­ing the death of her part­ner Joshua Sama­roo and the in­juries she sus­tained.

Last Thurs­day, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Roger Gas­pard, di­rect­ed that po­lice charge Sealy with manslaugh­ter in con­nec­tion with the death of her part­ner Joshua Sama­roo, fol­low­ing a po­lice chase and shoot­ing on Jan­u­ary 20 in St Au­gus­tine.

A TTPS re­lease read: “Act­ing on the ad­vice of the DPP, in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­duct­ed fur­ther en­quiries and ob­tained war­rants for the ar­rest of Ka­ia Sealy of Bam­boo Set­tle­ment No. 1, Val­sayn for the fol­low­ing of­fences: Three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm at the po­lice, con­trary to Sec­tion 12 of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Chap­ter 11:08, in re­la­tion to the in­ci­dent which oc­curred on Jan­u­ary 20th, 2026, at the cor­ner of Col­lege Road and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine.” A war­rant was is­sued for her ar­rest.

But in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, via her at­tor­ney, Fay­ola Sandy, Sealy de­nied re­cent claims from the fam­i­ly of her de­ceased part­ner that she was a gang­ster, in­volved in crime.

Ac­cord­ing to Sealy, the on­ly thing she can be cer­tain about at this time is her in­no­cence.

“What hurts deeply is see­ing at­tempts to paint me as some kind of gang­ster or crim­i­nal when that is not who I am. My name is Ka­ia Sealy.
I am a moth­er.
I am a be­liev­er in Christ. I at­tend­ed St Cather­ine’s Girls’ An­gli­can School for my pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion and then I passed for Bish­op Anstey High School, af­ter that, my moth­er in­vest­ed in my hair styling tal­ents, where I suc­cess­ful­ly ac­quired my in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised li­cence from Madam Ma­haraj School of Cos­me­tol­ogy. My peers know me as a hard­work­ing young woman who built an hon­est life through hair­styling and beau­ty ser­vices from my teenage years.

“I am not a gang­ster. I have nev­er been in trou­ble with the law. I have on­ly ever seen a gun on an armed se­cu­ri­ty or po­lice of­fi­cer. I have nev­er held a gun in my life, much less fired one at po­lice of­fi­cers. I have nev­er had a friend, fam­i­ly mem­ber or part­ner in­tro­duce a gun in­to my en­vi­ron­ment. This is not en­ter­tain­ment for me. This is not loss of a job. This is not loss of some high rank­ing po­si­tion. This is my re­al life,” she said.

Sealy said her fam­i­ly and every­thing she built over her life have been ripped apart by what took place on Jan­u­ary 20.

Nonethe­less, she said she be­lieves the truth will emerge one day.

“This is not a movie. This is my night­mare of a re­al­i­ty. I was not on­ly left griev­ing the hor­rif­ic death of my part­ner, Joshua Sama­roo, the fa­ther of our five-year-old daugh­ter, but I was al­so left griev­ing the body I once had. Shock is an un­der­state­ment for what I feel. I am dis­traught. I am in dis­be­lief. But my faith in God has not shak­en.

“Can you imag­ine feel­ing frozen in time, trapped in a crouched po­si­tion, un­able to move or take cov­er for safe­ty while deaf­en­ing ex­plo­sions erupt around you and count­less bul­lets zoom through the air? A sur­re­al mo­ment. Feel­ing like hunt­ed prey. Wound­ed and silent­ly plead­ing to God that you live long enough to see your child again.

“Can you imag­ine hear­ing your part­ner strug­gling to breathe? Gasp­ing for air.

“Gur­gling. Chok­ing on his own blood while fight­ing to stay alive. Can you imag­ine be­ing thrown in­to the trunk of a ve­hi­cle on top of your in­jured part­ner, un­able to se­cure your­self prop­er­ly be­cause your body no longer re­sponds, while be­ing ag­gres­sive­ly ques­tioned be­fore even reach­ing the hos­pi­tal for ur­gent treat­ment? All while your lover, best friend and life part­ner’s breath was slow­ing and be­com­ing more faint. Can you imag­ine fight­ing for your own life be­cause your daugh­ter may oth­er­wise grow up with no par­ent at all?” she asked.

Sealy said that de­spite her at­tor­ney re­main­ing in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with sev­er­al in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers, she found out about the charges via me­dia re­ports and not through any of­fi­cial means.

“Now, months lat­er, while I re­main abroad un­der­go­ing nec­es­sary treat­ment and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, I, like the rest of the coun­try, learned through the me­dia that I am now al­leged­ly be­ing charged in con­nec­tion with Joshua’s death,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Sealy, who was left paral­ysed by in­juries sus­tained dur­ing the shoot­ing, her at­tor­ney has since writ­ten to the TTPS seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion, but no re­sponse has been pro­vid­ed.

She added, “This state­ment is not a full an­swer to any al­le­ga­tions against me.”