Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Six peo­ple were killed fol­low­ing a vi­o­lent night in south Trinidad in three sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in less than sev­en hours, leav­ing po­lice scram­bling be­tween a stab­bing, a dou­ble mur­der and a triple killing. And a man was al­so found dead in Mor­vant as the week­end end­ed with a killing spree.

Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion III Homi­cide Bu­reau were first called to Easy Street in Fyz­abad around 7 pm on Sun­day, af­ter 26-year-old labour­er Mic­ah Joseph was stabbed to death dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion. He had gone to drop off mon­ey for his two chil­dren, aged four and five, at their moth­er’s home.

Speak­ing at their John Jules Trace home yes­ter­day, his sis­ter, Eliz­a­beth Joseph, said her broth­er and the chil­dren’s moth­er had bro­ken off the re­la­tion­ship about a year ago but he would usu­al­ly keep the chil­dren on week­ends.

She claimed that on Sun­day morn­ing when he dropped the chil­dren off at their moth­er’s home, he had an al­ter­ca­tion with a man who was con­nect­ed to the chil­dren’s moth­er.

She said, “When he reached home, she called him back and said she need­ed the mon­ey (for the chil­dren). When he came home, he told his broth­er, and the two of them and some neigh­bours went up there to drop the mon­ey, and that’s when we got the call that he died. He was stabbed and was gasp­ing for air, and he died.”

She said her younger broth­er was al­so in­jured dur­ing the al­ter­ca­tion but his in­juries were not life-threat­en­ing.

She claimed there were oth­er dis­putes with the sus­pect, but she nev­er imag­ined her broth­er would have been mur­dered.

“Most of the time when he drops things for the chil­dren, the things would get thrown back in his face, or he get pelt down with stones. Once he got a cut on his foot and he re­port it to the po­lice. He loved his chil­dren so he would try his best.” She said his broth­er was not work­ing reg­u­lar­ly, but he tried his best to pro­vide for his chil­dren.

While still in Fyz­abad, in­ves­ti­ga­tors were alert­ed about a dou­ble mur­der near a car wash close to the First Cit­i­zens Bank along the Pe­nal Rock Road—a short dis­tance from the po­lice sta­tion and the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­stituen­cy of­fice.

The vic­tims were iden­ti­fied as Jahrael Hunte, 23, of Syne Vil­lage, Pe­nal, and Ran­dolph Fe­lix, 45, who lived a few hous­es away from where the mur­ders oc­curred.

Po­lice said around 8 pm, the men were lim­ing with oth­ers when three gun­men opened fire, killing Hunte and Fe­lix and in­jur­ing a 38-year-old man.

Hunte’s rel­a­tives de­clined to com­ment, while Fe­lix’s rel­a­tive claimed he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Just af­ter 1 am, gun­men struck again, this time in Ste Madeleine, leav­ing labour­er Mar­tin Har­riper­sad, 43, and his friends Kler­ry King Fook and An­tho­ny Al­i­bo­cas.

The at­tack took place at Har­riper­sad’s home on Sixth Street.

King Fook’s body was found at the en­trance of the home, while Har­riper­sad was found on a bed and the oth­er man was on the floor of a bed­room.

Stand­ing at the front gate of his broth­er’s home yes­ter­day, where blood stains were still on the ground and bul­let holes in a door, Math­ew Har­riper­sad was in dis­be­lief.

He said he did not know the two men who were stay­ing at his broth­er’s home, but he did not be­lieve his broth­er was the in­tend­ed tar­get. He said his broth­er’s son told him he left home ear­li­er with his dogs to go hunt­ing.

“My nephew went to hunt with a next friend and com­ing back he heard the shots. He stopped and hide. When he come up, then he re­alised that it was at his home the shots were fired.”

He said Har­riper­sad would work “ten days” cy­cles at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion and was the fa­ther of three chil­dren.

“It’s shock­ing to me. I re­al­ly don’t know why them fel­las do these things.”

How­ev­er, he be­lieved his broth­er kept bad com­pa­ny. Lament­ing that the crime was out of con­trol, he said, “The crime sit­u­a­tion is bad. Peo­ple are run­ning all over, killing peo­ple. It is like noth­ing. And the po­lice are not pick­ing up these fel­las? They are just walk­ing in and walk­ing out.”

He said crim­i­nals would “think twice” about com­mit­ting mur­ders if the Gov­ern­ment re­sumes hang­ings.

Mean­while, po­lice were still seek­ing as­sis­tance from the pub­lic in iden­ti­fy­ing the body of a man dumped at So­han Trace, off First Cale­do­nia Road, Mor­vant.

Po­lice sus­pect the man was killed else­where and his body dumped at the lo­ca­tion. Just af­ter 7 am, po­lice re­ceived in­for­ma­tion of a body cov­ered in blood on the road­side. The man was dressed in a blue three-quar­ter pants, black and white sneak­ers and white vest. A blood­ied cloth was al­so found near his body.

Com­ment­ing on the mur­ders yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said they oc­curred in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try and in ar­eas not prone to homi­cides.

Asked about the spikes in mur­ders, he re­called that in 2024 there were 629 mur­ders, which were re­duced by 42 per cent last year.

“Our goal for this year is still to have a less homi­cide fig­ure than last year, and as you right­ful­ly said, there were spikes, which we would call anom­alies, and these are ones that we can pre­vent. But, we recog­nise that what is caus­ing the spikes are homi­cides with mul­ti­ple vic­tims,” Gue­var­ro said.

He again urged the pub­lic to as­sist the po­lice with in­for­ma­tion that could pre­vent or solve crimes. He al­so en­cour­aged them to re­port rel­a­tives in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

“When you hear or recog­nise that your rel­a­tives are in­volved in cer­tain crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, please re­port them to the po­lice. It’s bet­ter they get ar­rest­ed and in­car­cer­at­ed than you have to bury them,” he warned.

Last evening, the mur­der toll stood at 156, just sev­en less than the same pe­ri­od for last year.