Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

Just one day af­ter Joshua Sama­roo’s fa­ther, Christo­pher Sama­roo, told Guardian Me­dia that he was shell-shocked and in dis­be­lief that his daugh­ter-in-law, Ka­ia Sealy, had been ac­cused of killing his son, he has now made a stun­ning re­ver­sal.

Sama­roo said his opin­ion changed af­ter the fam­i­ly’s at­tor­ney, Criston J Williams, ex­plained the like­ly mean­ing of the charges to be laid against Sealy on Fri­day.

Sama­roo’s sis­ter, Chris­tine, and fa­ther now be­lieve the al­le­ga­tions put for­ward by the TTPS that Sealy was some­how in­volved in Joshua’s killing.

“I’ve been in­formed that she’s al­leged­ly known in the TTPS sys­tem as Gangs­ta Bar­bie... I have to go with what I’m see­ing. Un­til she is brought be­fore the court, I just have to go with it,” Joshua’s sis­ter, Chris­tine, said.

On Thurs­day, the TTPS an­nounced that a di­rec­tive from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Roger Gas­pard, was hand­ed down for a se­ries of crim­i­nal charges to be laid in the mat­ter and that sev­er­al war­rants had been is­sued for the ar­rest of Sealy.

The re­lease said, “Act­ing on the ad­vice of the DPP, in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­duct­ed fur­ther en­quiries and ob­tained war­rants for the ar­rest of Ka­ia Sealy of Bam­boo Set­tle­ment No. 1, Val­sayn, for the fol­low­ing of­fences: Three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm at the po­lice, con­trary to Sec­tion 12 of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Chap­ter 11:08, in re­la­tion to the in­ci­dent which oc­curred on Jan­u­ary 20th, 2026, at the cor­ner of Col­lege Road and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a war­rant has been is­sued for the of­fence of: Manslaugh­ter, con­trary to com­mon law, in that on Jan­u­ary 20th, 2026, at the cor­ner of Col­lege Road and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine, Ka­ia Sealy un­law­ful­ly killed Joshua Sama­roo, in ad­di­tion to oth­er re­lat­ed charges.”

Ac­cord­ing to Chris­tine, she de­vel­oped sus­pi­cions about Ka­ia short­ly af­ter the shoot­ing, but had been per­suad­ed to drop them.

“Even when it first hap­pened with my broth­er, I was hear­ing cer­tain spec­u­la­tion about Ka­ia. I would have sent Ka­ia a pic­ture. I don’t know if you re­mem­ber, there was a guy who was send­ing threats to the fam­i­ly and threats to Ka­ia to fin­ish her off, I sent a pic­ture of the guy. This per­son’s alias is Dougla. I said to Ka­ia, ‘Can you please con­firm whether this is this guy, Dougla, that you’ll went to check in Mal­oney (be­fore the shoot­ing)?’ She said, ‘No, that’s not him.’ Af­ter that, she blocked me on all so­cial me­dia plat­forms, In­sta­gram, Tik­Tok, What­sApp, every­thing.

“I sent it (the same pic­ture) to some­one who limes with Dougla (and Ka­ia). They (the per­son and Dougla) limed to­geth­er the night be­fore the shoot­ing. I said, ‘Can you please con­firm if this is Dougla, whom Joshua went to check in Mal­oney?’ and he said, ‘Yes, that is him.’ So I won­dered to my­self, why is Ka­ia ly­ing to me? I told my fa­ther and sis­ter. They were say­ing to stop push­ing that nar­ra­tive, and hon­est­ly, I let it go. I let my gut feel­ing go... We didn’t want to dwell on it, be­cause we were wait­ing for it to fiz­zle out and wait for it to come to light,” she said.

Dougla, an Amer­i­can-born for­mer mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, is al­leged­ly a Sev­en gang mem­ber lo­cat­ed in Mal­oney Gar­dens.

On In­sta­gram, he re­port­ed­ly threat­ened Sealy and the close rel­a­tives of Joshua Sama­roo af­ter the Jan­u­ary 20 killing, claim­ing to be an ac­tive TTPS of­fi­cer.

His claims of be­ing a TTPS of­fi­cer could not be ver­i­fied by the Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk.

In the mes­sages, he claimed rel­a­tives of Sama­roo and Sealy were seek­ing in­for­ma­tion on him through fake pro­files.

Sealy’s state­ment

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the Jan­u­ary 20 shoot­ing be­gan with a po­lice chase in Mal­oney Gar­dens.

Sealy, in a state­ment giv­en to po­lice in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary, said she and Sama­roo stopped in Mal­oney Gar­dens be­fore school pick­up for their child.

She said Sama­roo stopped to speak with some­one, and she heard him say, “Don’t both­er” to the per­son, be­fore re­vers­ing.

“Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle moved in front of our car. An of­fi­cer ex­it­ed the po­lice ve­hi­cle with a firearm drawn. Joshua re­versed away. I then ob­served the same young man who had ap­proached our ve­hi­cle (pre­sum­ably to speak with Joshua) en­ter the po­lice ve­hi­cle, af­ter which the po­lice ve­hi­cle pur­sued us.

“...I was ex­treme­ly fright­ened and plead­ed with Joshua to stop be­cause I was afraid we would crash... He con­tin­ued dri­ving and kept say­ing words to the ef­fect of ‘it’s okay, don’t wor­ry.’... While turn­ing on­to a back street, the ve­hi­cle skid­ded and col­lid­ed with a gal­vanised fence. Up­on im­pact, I be­gan scream­ing... Joshua said words to the ef­fect of ‘okay, okay,’ and he low­ered the dri­ver-side win­dow and put both of his hands out­side the win­dow. At that point, po­lice of­fi­cers be­gan fir­ing in­to the ve­hi­cle,” the state­ment read.

The dis­tance be­tween Mal­oney Gar­dens and St Au­gus­tine is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 11 kilo­me­tres, mean­ing it would take, on av­er­age, be­tween 12 and 20 min­utes to dri­ve.

Unan­swered ques­tions

Since the de­ci­sion to lay charges against Sealy was an­nounced, there has been out­rage on so­cial me­dia, from crim­i­nol­o­gists, politi­cians, and oth­ers about the po­lice ac­tions in the Joshua Sama­roo shoot­ing. But sev­er­al crit­i­cal ques­tions re­main with­out an­swers: What was the rea­son for Sama­roo and Sealy’s vis­it to Mal­oney Gar­dens? Who did they meet in Mal­oney? Why did the po­lice be­gin to chase them? Why did they not stop the ve­hi­cle?

While those ques­tions re­main unan­swered for now, Chris­tine be­lieves the truth is now in­deed just start­ing to come to light.

“I want jus­tice for my broth­er, he’s al­ready dead. I just want to be able to walk out my door safe­ly, be­cause I don’t know who she knows... I am scared for my life,” Chris­tine added.

Her fa­ther, Christo­pher, agreed with her, say­ing he had com­plete faith in his at­tor­ney’s ex­pla­na­tion of the charges.

“Though what I am hear­ing is not what I want to hear, I have to go with what he’s say­ing... As much as I don’t like what I am hear­ing, I have to go with it be­cause some­times the truth can be of­fen­sive.

“I’ll have to go with what she (Chris­tine) says, be­cause this is the first time that I am hear­ing about it. I don’t have any oth­er al­ter­na­tive. I have faith in the process and, if she is guilty, let her be pros­e­cut­ed, and if she is not guilty, let her be found in­no­cent, and let jus­tice be done,” he said.

Mean­while, the fam­i­ly’s at­tor­ney, CJ Williams, al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the process.

He called on the State to ini­ti­ate for­mal steps to have Ka­ia ex­tra­dit­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go from the Unit­ed States to face the charges.

“We hope she is found, wher­ev­er she is found, and re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go and pros­e­cut­ed in ac­cor­dance with the full laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Sealy is cur­rent­ly in the Unit­ed States re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment.

Williams said, based on the charges laid, it seems as though, yet again, mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice were al­leged­ly used to ex­e­cute an ex­tra­ju­di­cial killing.

“As far as I am con­cerned, this is not the first, sec­ond or third time they’re say­ing po­lice of­fi­cers are in­volved in ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings. This whole thing is an ex­tra­ju­di­cial killing, where the TTPS was used, and now we have a pret­ty young la­dy, who the DPP is say­ing is the cause of this.”

Yes­ter­day, Sealy re­leased a state­ment say­ing she was in­no­cent.

She de­nied be­ing in­volved in crime say­ing she was not a gang­ster and had nev­er been in trou­ble with the law.

Ka­ia’s fam­i­ly, friend rush

to her de­fence

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk spoke with friends and a rel­a­tive of Sealy on Thurs­day evening, and they all ex­pressed shock and con­cern with the TTPS’ de­ci­sion to charge her.

A close fe­male rel­a­tive said, “All we can do is just pray at this time, be­cause all the video cam­eras in­di­cat­ed the mur­der by the po­lice of­fi­cers. They have no case and are try­ing to turn it around, but my God shall give us jus­tice.

“We wish to be in qui­et time with our Lord in prayer at this time.”

Mean­while, Sealy’s friend, Alyssa Phillip, called on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, to re­sign.

She said her friend was in­ca­pable of com­mit­ting the crimes she was ac­cused of, de­scrib­ing her as a kind, lov­ing, gen­er­ous and pray­ing per­son who ex­celled as a pro­fes­sion­al hair­dress­er.

“Nev­er in a mil­lion years… But I think it’d give her some com­fort in know­ing that there are peo­ple stand­ing up for her, al­though those in charge are against her.

“I be­lieve that peo­ple should come out (to the protest in Port-of-Spain on Sun­day) be­cause this is bla­tant cor­rup­tion be­ing played out in our faces, and we can­not let it slide, else those in pow­er would con­tin­ue to take ad­van­tage of us, and noth­ing will ever change. The next Ka­ia could be any one of us, so let us pre­vent a sit­u­a­tion where any­one else has to be the next Ka­ia,” she said.

A protest in sup­port of Sealy will take place to­day out­side the TTPS Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

Manslaugh­ter charges ex­plained

No­body, out­side the scope of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Joshua Sama­roo’s po­lice-in­volved killing, saw it com­ing—a manslaugh­ter charge that Sealy un­law­ful­ly killed her part­ner, Sama­roo.

Three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm at the po­lice.

As ex­pressed in a mul­ti­tude of so­cial me­dia posts, peo­ple were left be­wil­dered and/or an­gered by their in­ter­pre­ta­tions of what the TTPS was say­ing, or at­tempt­ing to say, in its re­lease.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk sought an ex­pla­na­tion from at­tor­neys about what it means, or could mean, when an in­di­vid­ual is charged with manslaugh­ter, con­trary to com­mon law, as Sealy was.

At­tor­neys, who wished to speak off the record, said the of­fence, in­her­it­ed from the Eng­lish com­mon law sys­tem, refers to the un­law­ful killing of some­one that is less se­ri­ous than mur­der.

They gave the ex­am­ple of some­one com­mit­ting a reck­less act lead­ing to a death that they did not in­tend, such as mo­tor ve­hi­cle manslaugh­ter.

Vol­un­tary Manslaugh­ter—The de­fen­dant has the in­tent to kill or cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm, but the grade of the de­fence is re­duced by a par­tial de­fence. In T&T, there are two par­tial de­fences un­der the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Chap­ter 11:08: Provo­ca­tion—the de­fen­dant lost self-con­trol be­cause of provoca­tive con­duct by the de­ceased; and Di­min­ished Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty—the de­fen­dant was suf­fer­ing from im­paired men­tal func­tion.

In­vol­un­tary Manslaugh­ter—The de­fen­dant does not have the in­tent to kill. In T&T, there are two types recog­nised un­der com­mon law. First­ly, Gross Neg­li­gence Manslaugh­ter—the de­fen­dant caused death via a breach of du­ty of care; and sec­ond­ly, Un­law­ful Act—the de­fen­dant caus­es death by com­mit­ting an un­law­ful and dan­ger­ous act even if death was not the in­tent.

At­tor­neys ad­vised that they could not give a fair in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the manslaugh­ter charge with­out know­ing the ev­i­dence used to sup­port it.

They said there were mul­ti­ple pos­si­ble rea­sons for the charge.

As an ex­am­ple, they said there is a law for some­one to be charged with manslaugh­ter if they were the get­away dri­ver or pas­sen­ger in a ve­hi­cle that was used in a rob­bery end­ing in a death.

Af­ter the Jan­u­ary 20 shoot­ing, a war­rant was grant­ed to search Sealy’s elec­tron­ic de­vices.

In Feb­ru­ary, Sealy’s at­tor­neys suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged the TTPS’s con­fis­ca­tion of the de­vices, and they were even­tu­al­ly re­turned.

The le­gal claim sought to as­sert that there was no ev­i­den­tial ba­sis link­ing Sealy’s elec­tron­ic de­vices to the al­leged firearm of­fence aris­ing from the in­ci­dent.

It was on Jan­u­ary 23, three days af­ter the shoot­ing, that se­cu­ri­ty sur­veil­lance footage from a home near­by was up­loaded on­line.

The video showed a ve­hi­cle crash­ing, at high speed, in­to a wall at the cor­ner of the street.

Three po­lice of­fi­cers from the po­lice ve­hi­cle that was in pur­suit ex­it and ap­proach Sama­roo’s ve­hi­cle.

On the dri­ver’s side, Sama­roo is seen rolling down the win­dow and putting his hands out, pre­sum­ably to sig­nal that he was not armed.

The footage does not show, at any point, what Ka­ia Sealy was do­ing in the pas­sen­ger’s seat.

The of­fi­cers opened fire, killing Sama­roo and in­jur­ing Sealy.

Ac­cord­ing to Sama­roo’s au­top­sy re­port, he died from shock and haem­or­rhage, poly­trau­ma and mul­ti­ple gun­shot in­juries.

The ev­i­dence of in­juries stat­ed that he re­ceived gun­shot en­try wounds to the left side of his head, his right cheek, his up­per back and left el­bow.

There were mul­ti­ple lac­er­a­tions, pre­sum­ably from gun­shot wounds, to the right side of his head, his right arm, up­per back, low­er back, right el­bow and low­er thigh.

Sealy suf­fered in­juries to her spine, re­sult­ing in re­port­ed paral­y­sis.

The of­fi­cers in­volved claimed they were shot at and that they re­cov­ered a gun from the ve­hi­cle.

Sealy de­nied that claim.