RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A day af­ter an au­top­sy con­firmed that Sher­ryann Roett had been mur­dered, her un­cle, Dan­ny Kissoon, re­vealed that her killing oc­curred just hours be­fore she was set to ap­pear in court in a do­mes­tic mat­ter.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Kissoon ex­pressed sad­ness over Roett's death, re­veal­ing that her mur­der took place just hours be­fore she was due to set­tle her af­fairs in court.

Kissoon said he was ap­palled that her killer at­tempt­ed to dis­guise her mur­der as a sui­cide.

"She was nev­er sui­ci­dal. She was a very nice per­son, very kind and com­pas­sion­ate," Kissoon said.

He ex­plained that Roett was the daugh­ter of his sis­ter, Gail Roett. Kissoon de­scribed Roett as some­one who loved chil­dren and worked as a mer­chan­dis­er. He said she was gen­er­ous to the less for­tu­nate.

"Every Christ­mas, she would make up ham­pers to give away. She was a de­vot­ed moth­er," Kissoon said.

He al­so de­nied re­ports that Roett had been in­volved with a Venezue­lan man, stat­ing: "Peo­ple just want to tar­nish the girl's char­ac­ter. She had no friend. She used to come and spend the week­end with her moth­er. She en­joyed be­ing with us and hang­ing out with her broth­ers."

Kissoon al­so ex­pressed con­cern about whether jus­tice would be served for his niece.

"So many women get killed and they didn't get jus­tice. Who is to say she would get?" he said.

Kissoon con­firmed that fu­ner­al arrange­ments for Roett had not yet been fi­nalised but were aim­ing for the fu­ner­al to take place on Fri­day.

Mean­while, po­lice have stat­ed that the mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion is at a sen­si­tive stage.

Roett's se­mi-de­com­posed body was found hang­ing from a tree on Mon­day near a fish stall at Car­li Bay, Cou­va. An au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre con­firmed that she had been beat­en to death. Her body showed signs of vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing in­juries to her fore­head, eye, un­der her left arm, nose bridge, and both hands and feet.

Roett has two chil­dren, aged 15 and 18. Po­lice said no miss­ing per­sons re­port had been filed.