In­nis Fran­cis

in­nis.fran­cis@ya­hoo.com

A fam­i­ly of four was beat­en and robbed by four ban­dits who broke in­to their home at La For­tune Trace, Bois Jean Jean, Moru­ga, ear­ly Fri­day morn­ing.

Sta­cy-Ann and Dave Rag­bir and their two chil­dren were hogtied and beat­en by the ban­dits who al­so threat­ened to do fur­ther harm to their 16-year-old daugh­ter and in­fect her with AIDS.

Re­count­ing the fam­i­ly’s or­deal yes­ter­day, Sta­cy-Ann Rag­bir said she woke up af­ter hear­ing a noise around 3.41 am and dis­cov­ered the four masked in­trud­ers who had gained en­try through a met­al door at the back of the house. She man­aged to call a fam­i­ly friend who alert­ed the Moru­ga Po­lice Sta­tion.

“My hus­band couldn’t fight all of them, it was four of them with masks. They say lie down on the ground, this is a hit, they were re­al­ly ag­gres­sive,” she said.

“The kids were asleep and they bring all of us and duct tape our hands in the liv­ing room. I tell them I couldn’t breathe, and they say shut up. They asked for mon­ey, I say we don’t have any mon­ey.”

The Rag­birs, who have lived in the area for the past 21 years, are veg­etable farm­ers.

With tears in her eyes, Sta­cy-Ann said she thought their last and on­ly hope was prayers but the ban­dits shout­ed at her to stop pray­ing.

“They ran­sack the house and went back in­to my bed­room and found some cash. That was mon­ey we had to pay the work­men, we don’t keep mon­ey home. But my hus­band called out one of them, he say (name called) that is you boy? And they hit him with a gun butt in his eye and fore­head. I feel is peo­ple who know us and our house be­cause we do not have en­e­mies,” she said.

The cou­ple said they had heard talk in the vil­lage that there was a hit on them. Sta­cy-Ann said she re­gret­ted not re­port­ing what she had heard to the po­lice.

Yes­ter­day, the fam­i­ly was in­stalling se­cu­ri­ty and sur­veil­lance cam­eras, en­forc­ing the fenc­ing around their home and get­ting guard dogs.

The ban­dits made off with ap­prox­i­mate­ly $30,000 in cash and jew­el­ry.

Sgt Tou­s­saint and a par­ty of of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the scene and ar­rest­ed two sus­pects, one from East­ern Quar­ry Road, Laven­tille, and the oth­er from Diego Mar­tin. Two oth­er sus­pects are still at large.