Derek Achong

The rur­al farm­ing vil­lage of Las Lo­mas was left in a mixed state of shock and grief af­ter one of its most fa­mous res­i­dents Evan­gel­i­cal pas­tor Vish­nu "Kit­ty" Lutch­mans­ingh em­barked on a mur­der­ous ram­page which end­ed with him tak­ing his own life.

Lutch­mans­ingh, 54, who shot to fame in 2003 with claims of his al­leged in­her­i­tance of a bil­lion dol­lar for­tune be­fore he was even­tu­al­ly in­dict­ed in an em­bez­zle­ment scam, be­gan his crazed spree of vi­o­lence by fa­tal­ly shoot­ing his younger broth­er be­fore plow­ing his car in­to his nephew and then re­turn­ing home where he set his house on fire with him in­side.

While homi­cide de­tec­tives had not es­tab­lished a clear mo­tive for the in­ci­dent up to late yes­ter­day, they were said to be work­ing on the the­o­ry that it stemmed from an on­go­ing land dis­pute be­tween Lutch­mans­ingh and his nine sib­lings.How­ev­er, this the­o­ry was dis­put­ed by some mem­bers of the Lutch­mans­ingh fam­i­ly who claimed no knowl­edge of a feud be­tween the broth­ers."They was close. I don't care who wrong or right. I love them both," their sob­bing sis­ter, who asked to re­main uniden­ti­fied, said while shak­ing her head in dis­be­lief.

Oth­er rel­a­tives who were on the scenes of the mur­der/sui­cide hud­dled to­geth­er as they con­soled each oth­er and re­fused to com­ment to me­dia per­son­nel.Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, short­ly af­ter 10 am Lutch­mans­ingh's 44-year-old broth­er Kis­han and his three friends went to his gar­den near to his David To­by Trace, Chin Chin Road, Cunu­pia, home.The men heard sev­er­al gun­shots and when they checked saw Lutch­mans­ingh shoot­ing at the tyres and wind­shield of Kis­han's sil­ver Nis­san Almera.

The three men ran away leav­ing Kis­han be­hind. Lutch­mans­ingh re­port­ed­ly walked up to his broth­er and shot him once in the head. As he col­lapsed in the field, Lutch­mans­ingh shot him sev­er­al times in his chest.Lutch­mans­ingh then calm­ly re­turned to his car and be­gan the 15 minute dri­ve to his house at Savary Ex­ten­sion Road, Las Lo­mas No 1. On his re­turn jour­ney, Lutch­mans­ingh saw his sis­ter's son Tim­o­thy Jan­i­tan, al­so of David To­by Trace, Cunu­pia, walk­ing to­wards his home.

He re­port­ed­ly sped up on see­ing Jan­i­tan and at­tempt­ed to plough his Nis­san Wingroad sta­tion wag­on in­to him. Jan­i­tan tried to move from the path of the car by jump­ing in­to a drain at the side of the road. How­ev­er, he still struck and sus­tained se­ri­ous leg in­juries.Lutch­mans­ingh then con­tin­ued on his jour­ney home. Jan­i­tan was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was treat­ed.

Po­lice said short­ly be­fore reach­ing his home, Lutch­mans­ingh crashed the ve­hi­cle in­to a ditch in front of a met­al boom which blocks en­try in­to the prop­er­ty.Lutch­mans­ingh then went in­side his 8 x12 me­tre wood­en sin­gle sto­ry house, perched on a scenic hill over­look­ing a man-made lake left over from an aban­doned quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tion in the area.The pas­tor's neigh­bours con­tact­ed po­lice short­ly af­ter when they no­ticed his house was on fire.

By the time fire of­fi­cers and ten­ders from the Ch­agua­nas Fire Sta­tion nav­i­gat­ed their way through the pot­hole in­fest­ed road which leads to Lutch­mans­ingh's prop­er­ty, the roof had al­ready col­lapsed and the house in flames.When a news team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed Lutch­mans­ingh's prop­er­ty around mid­day yes­ter­day, po­lice and fire of­fi­cers were seen scour­ing the smol­der­ing ru­ins of his house for clues and ev­i­dence.

Fire of­fi­cers found Lutch­mans­ingh's re­mains which were burnt be­yond recog­ni­tion un­der a pile of rub­ble.Some of the met­al com­po­nents of Lutch­mans­ingh's li­cenced Heck­ler & Koch 9 mm pis­tol, the weapon po­lice be­lieve he used to mur­der Kis­han with, with­stood the in­fer­no and were found un­der his body.Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­mained on the scene up to late yes­ter­day as they at­tempt­ed to lo­cate a shot­gun, which they said was al­so list­ed on Lutch­mans­ingh's firearm users li­cence.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said be­cause of the lo­ca­tion where gun was found, Lutch­mans­ingh might have shot him­self af­ter set­ting the house on fire.How­ev­er, they said they would wait un­til an post mortem is per­formed on his body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James to­day to con­firm their sus­pi­cions.

Flash­back:

In 2002, Lutch­mans­ingh rose to fame af­ter he wrote and pub­lished a three-part book se­ries ti­tled From Pover­ty to Pros­per­i­ty.He op­er­at­ed Faith Sanc­tu­ary Fam­i­ly Min­istries at the Old South­ern Main Road in Cunu­pia, be­fore be­ing forced to re­lo­cate to Har­mo­ny Hall, Re­form Vil­lage, Mara­bel­la due to a le­gal bat­tle over own­er­ship of the orig­i­nal par­cel of land the church was on.

Lutch­mans­ingh claimed that he was the sole ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar will of Unit­ed States rail­road en­gi­neer Bu­ford B Keaton who died in Ken­tucky, in 1999.Sev­er­al years lat­er he was slapped with over 80 fraud charges for a num­ber of of­fences in­clud­ing ut­ter­ing forged doc­u­ments and ob­tain­ing mon­ey by false pre­tences.

In March 2012, Se­nior Mag­is­trate In­dra Ramoo-Haynes com­mit­ted Lutch­mans­ingh to stand tri­al in the San Fer­nan­do High Court for de­fraud­ing Nu­trim­ix ex­ec­u­tive Sha­heed Mo­hammed of $3 mil­lion.He was al­so be­fore Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bac­a­han for al­leged­ly swin­dling $1.1 mil­lion from four oth­er busi­ness­men from south Trinidad.Lutch­mans­ingh was al­leged to have bor­rowed the mon­ey from busi­ness­men and promised to re­pay the sums at ex­or­bi­tant rates of in­ter­est, us­ing his claimed in­her­i­tance.

In­sp Jack­man, Sgt Fi­garo, Cpls Mo­hammed and Ram­saran, of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion and Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to his mur­der.