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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Murder ends Christmas wedding plans

by

594 days ago
20231207

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

South Oropouche moth­er of six Emi­ly Ce­de­no was look­ing for­ward to one of her best Christ­mases this year with her youngest son, 24-year-old Bri­an Ce­de­no, ex­pect­ed to mar­ry his preg­nant girl­friend three days be­fore Christ­mas.

In­stead, she is plan­ning his fu­ner­al af­ter he was fa­tal­ly shot out­side his cousin's house a stone's throw from their home at Ralph Nar­ine Trace, South Oropouche.

Around 9.30 pm on Tues­day, Ce­de­no was lim­ing with his cousin and oth­er peo­ple when a van stopped in front of the house and sev­er­al shots were fired. Ce­de­no was hit in his right eye, neck and leg.

Her eyes red and swollen from cry­ing, Ce­de­no's moth­er re­called that she was at home when she heard loud ex­plo­sions and some­one shout­ed that her son had been shot.

"It is so sad. I tried to pick him up to car­ry him to the hos­pi­tal, but the po­lice and them say I had to leave him. I didn’t want to leave him. Last breath come out...and that was it," she said.

She said they were cook­ing dumplings and man­i­cou at the cousin's house and she had plead­ed with her son to come home be­cause she had a strange feel­ing.

"I begged him to come home and stay in­side, not to go out­side. I found the place was too calm. I got a yucky feel­ing in my stom­ach. He said, 'Ma I am com­ing just now'. He kept telling me he’s com­ing just now," she re­called

The day be­fore, Ce­de­no got in­to an al­ter­ca­tion with rel­a­tives when he de­fend­ed his cousin who was in­volved in a dis­pute over mon­ey. Fol­low­ing that in­ci­dent, their house was pelt­ed with bot­tles and they called the po­lice. Ce­de­no al­so pelt­ed the rel­a­tive's house with bot­tles on Tues­day.

"He was such a lov­ing child. Any­thing you ask him to do, he would do it," she said. "He was a child who did not like to fight and quar­rel."

Ce­de­no, who did roof and con­struc­tion work, had planned to mar­ry his 20-year-old preg­nant girl­friend be­fore Christ­mas.

"He wouldn’t get to see he or she...They should not have killed him, he did not de­serve that."

The griev­ing moth­er ex­pressed con­cern about the high rate of vi­o­lence and crime in the coun­try

"The youths need to check them­selves. Too many youths are on this crime scene. They are not tak­ing time to think about what they are do­ing. They do not care who dead. They are just act­ing, who not dead bad­ly wound­ed. But at the end of the day, as the Bible said we are com­ing to the end of times soon," she said.

An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done soon at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, Port of Spain. Of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.


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