Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A qui­et Rio Claro com­mu­ni­ty was left in shock af­ter a res­i­dent was shot dead in broad day­light yes­ter­day.

Po­lice and rel­a­tives iden­ti­fied the vic­tim as 58-year-old Syl­van Bood­han of Tabaquite Road, and be­lieve he was lured to his death. A rel­a­tive said Bood­han was at work when he re­ceived a phone call and drove to Boops­ingh Road off San Pe­dro Road.

They said around 8.30 am he was speak­ing to a man dressed in a blue hat, a black jer­sey and a dust mask with blue track pants. Bood­han opened the rear left door and showed a doc­u­ment to the sus­pect, who then pulled out a gun and shot him in the head. The sus­pect ran off as Bood­han col­lapsed to the ground.

A res­i­dent who saw the sus­pect min­utes be­fore the mur­der walk­ing along the road said she thought he may have been on his way to work. When she heard the gun­shot, she saw Bood­han col­lapse on the ground. An­oth­er res­i­dent said he was dri­ving when he saw a sus­pi­cious masked man run­ning along the road, un­aware that the man had just mur­dered a vil­lager.

Con­cerned that the man might be a ban­dit, the res­i­dent said he warned oth­er res­i­dents, par­tic­u­lar­ly el­der­ly peo­ple, that a sus­pi­cious man was in the com­mu­ni­ty and went in search of the sus­pect, who ran in­to the bush­es.

The res­i­dent said he on­ly learned what had hap­pened when he came up­on the mur­der scene. He said he tried to alert the po­lice when they ar­rived that he had seen the sus­pect and that he might still be in the area, but the of­fi­cers dis­missed him.

“When I see the in­ves­ti­ga­tors, I say that man right down the road. I see the man there.” How­ev­er, he said the po­lice chased him away, say­ing, “Go from here.”

“What hap­pen­ing here have to stop. The com­mu­ni­ty here is a qui­et com­mu­ni­ty,” he lament­ed. The res­i­dent said he knew Bood­han well. “When these things hap­pen in my zone, I have to se­cure my fam­i­ly busi­ness, too. I say if I on­ly know that man shoot the man, I bounce him,” he said.

Bood­han’s ex-wife, Glo­ria, who rushed to the scene af­ter hear­ing of the shoot­ing, said they had been sep­a­rat­ed for about ten years but still lived to­geth­er. She ex­pressed shock and sad­ness over his death. Bood­han had no bi­o­log­i­cal chil­dren but raised four chil­dren with his ex-wife.

Homi­cide de­tec­tives were last evening still try­ing to as­cer­tain a mo­tive for the mur­der.