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Monday, July 21, 2025

Matura businesswoman robbed, killed

by

Reporting by Ralph Banwarie
771 days ago
20230611
Relatives of businesswoman Charmaine Shaffie console each other yesterday.

Relatives of businesswoman Charmaine Shaffie console each other yesterday.

RALPH BANWARIE

The life­less body of the pro­pri­etor of Char­maine’s Bar and Mi­ni-Mart at Matu­ra was found at her home lo­cat­ed at To­co Main Road yes­ter­day morn­ing.

It is al­leged that Char­maine Shaffie was suf­fo­cat­ed. She was al­so robbed.

A mo­tive for her killing is yet to be de­ter­mined.

 Shaffie, 63, a moth­er of four, was found by her sis­ter, Sherene.

Sherene told Guardian Me­dia that she made sev­er­al calls to Shaffie, but all her calls went unan­swered. This aroused her sus­pi­cion and she de­cid­ed to go to her sis­ter’s house at Matu­ra.

On ar­rival at the house, she ob­served the back door on the north­ern side of the house open. She en­tered the premis­es and found sev­er­al pieces of Shaffie’s cloth­ing scat­tered on the floor. She called out to her sis­ter, but she nev­er re­spond­ed.  

She then went to the Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tion where she lodged a re­port.

The death of the busi­ness­woman has left the vil­lage in mourn­ing and rel­a­tives in shock.

One rel­a­tive be­lieved that she was killed by some­one in the vil­lage.  

Her broth­er told Guardian Me­dia that she lives by her­self and runs her busi­ness.

“Every Sun­day af­ter church I will stop and chat with her, but this Sun­day I will be at­tend­ing a wake for my sis­ter in­stead of chat­ting with her,” he said.

Most of the vil­lagers said Shaffie was a qui­et and re­spectable per­son.

Pas­sen­gers trav­el­ling to the North East Coast ex­pressed shock at her mur­der.

Su­san Lakhan Bap­tiste, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Na­ture Seek­ers, said that she was a like­able per­son. On­ly last week, she said, vis­i­tors from Cana­da and the US who came to look at the tur­tles nest­ing were lim­ing at her bar. She said the vis­i­tors told her they were treat­ed very kind­ly and spoke very high­ly about her.

Sgt Hazel, PCs Ram­per­sad and Cara­bal­lo vis­it­ed the premis­es and ob­served the de­ceased ly­ing on her bed, lo­cat­ed on the south­east­ern side of the house.

She was wear­ing a night dress and her hands and feet were bound to­geth­er with blue ny­lon string.

The of­fi­cers al­so saw a blue and yel­low tow­el wrapped around her neck and a blue jeans and dark grey jack­et cov­er­ing her stom­ach area.

A red han­dle cut­lass was found ly­ing be­side her on the bed.

Po­lice said the premis­es are fit­ted with CCTV cam­eras how­ev­er, they were not func­tion­ing at the time.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer viewed the body and or­dered its re­moval to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal. A post mortem is ex­pect­ed to be done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James.

Vis­it­ing the scene were Sen Supt Khan, Head East­ern Di­vi­sion, Ag In­sp Harp­er, Sgt Hazel,  PCs Ram­per­sad, Cara­bal­lo, Cpl James and oth­er of­fi­cers of Arou­ca Homi­cide Re­gion 11.

Of­fi­cers from Arou­ca Homi­cide Re­gion 11 are con­tin­u­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Undertakers remove the body of businesswoman Charmaine Shaffie from her Matura home yesterday.

Undertakers remove the body of businesswoman Charmaine Shaffie from her Matura home yesterday.

RALPH BANWARIE

murder


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