Derek Achong

An Aranguez, San Juan land­la­dy was blud­geoned to death with a ham­mer yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter an ar­gu­ment with a ten­ant over un­paid rent.Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 7 am, res­i­dents of Moul­la Trace, Aranguez, re­port­ed hear­ing 45-year-old Vidya Per­sad ar­gu­ing with her ten­ant.Her neigh­bours told po­lice that af­ter sev­er­al hours of con­stant quar­relling, her yard went qui­et and they then saw her ten­ant walk­ing out of the yard and to­wards the Aranguez Main Road.

A cou­ple of min­utes lat­er, a neigh­bour who was walk­ing along the road saw Per­sad ly­ing near her front gate.Po­lice were con­tact­ed and when they ar­rived they found Per­sad with vis­i­ble marks of vi­o­lence to the head and face.

While search­ing in and around her prop­er­ty, homi­cide de­tec­tives found a blood-stained ham­mer which they be­lieve was the weapon used to at­tack her. She was pro­nounced dead by a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer (DMO), who or­dered her body re­moved to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James, where an au­top­sy will be per­formed this morn­ing.Homi­cide de­tec­tives said the sus­pect, who is in his 20s, had not been ar­rest­ed up to late yes­ter­day.

Up to late yes­ter­day evening of­fi­cers were seek­ing a war­rant to search the man's apart­ment, which he shares with his girl­friend.It could not be con­firmed if in­ves­ti­ga­tors had in­ter­viewed his girl­friend, who was not at home at the time.De­tec­tives were al­so said to be re­view­ing CCTV footage from a near­by busi­ness for an im­age of the sus­pect.When a news team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, neigh­bours said the sus­pect moved in­to Per­sad's prop­er­ty a lit­tle more than four months ago.

"I don't think he pay rent since he move in. She was al­ways quar­relling with him for the rent," a neigh­bour said.The neigh­bours said the sus­pect did not speak much with them. They all said they hoped the po­lice would be able to de­tain him quick­ly."I hope they find him soon, so he would go to a place where he don't have to pay rent or buy food," an­oth­er neigh­bour said.

Per­sad's niece Savi Dur­ga said Per­sad lived in Bar­ba­dos with her hus­band and would vis­it Trinidad reg­u­lar­ly to check on the prop­er­ty and col­lect the rent."He was not pay­ing for months and a cou­ple of days now she was try­ing to evict him," Dur­ga said. She could not say ex­act­ly how much the sus­pect owed Per­sad, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors said the apart­ment was be­ing rent­ed for $2,100 a month.

The killing raised the mur­der toll for the year to 227.In­sp Wayne Lawrence and Cpl Jones of the Re­gion Two Homi­cide Bu­reau are prob­ing Per­sad's mur­der.