Sto­ries by Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A 48-year-old sol­dier de­tained in con­nec­tion with the mur­ders of a Care­nage moth­er and daugh­ter was in­ter­viewed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors yes­ter­day as the probe con­tin­ued.

The sol­dier, a War­rant Of­fi­cer II as­signed to Camp Cu­mu­to, is the main sus­pect in the mur­ders of Cal­i­da Scham­ber, 43, and her 66-year-old moth­er, Carmeli­ta De Leon, at their home in Shore­lands, Point Cumana, on Tues­day morn­ing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said af­ter the sus­pect was ar­rest­ed in a forest­ed part of the Blan­chisseuse Road, Ari­ma, around 8.30 pm on Tues­day, he was tak­en to a po­lice sta­tion in Port-of-Spain where he was in­ter­viewed. They said they are still gath­er­ing ev­i­dence and it was too ear­ly to say whether charges would be laid.

A po­lice source said the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion One would be the main unit con­duct­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions but oth­er units would as­sist in clar­i­fy­ing de­tails about the weapon used and how it was ac­cessed.

“It’s an on­go­ing process. There are lev­els of ques­tions that are posed at cer­tain times to es­tab­lish what hap­pened,” the source said.

“The de­tails on how and where the weapon was ob­tained and the move­ments of the sus­pect will form the over­all ev­i­dence pack­age. If any fur­ther as­sis­tance is re­quired they can al­ways call on oth­er units for help.”

Sources said the sus­pect is be­ing close­ly mon­i­tored.

At the scene of the mur­ders on Tues­day, fam­i­ly friend Anil Roberts told re­porters Scham­ber filed mul­ti­ple po­lice re­ports and even had a re­strain­ing or­der against the sus­pect.

Ques­tions were sent to the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit to ver­i­fy whether there was a re­strain­ing or­der against the sus­pect but there was no re­sponse up to press time. Ques­tions were al­so sent to the TT Reg­i­ment’s Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Unit seek­ing clar­i­ty on how the sus­pect was able to ac­cess a gun but there was no re­sponse.

Rel­a­tives of Scham­ber and De Leon vis­it­ed the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day to for­mal­ly iden­ti­fy their bod­ies but de­clined to speak with re­porters when they ar­rived and left. One rel­a­tive cov­ered his head with a tow­el while the oth­er blocked his face with a fold­er.