Kevon Felmine

Min­utes af­ter Ravi Maniedeo said good­bye to his moth­er and broth­er on New Year's Day, he was killed near his home at Old Long­denville Road. Maniedeo, 27, a truck dri­ver, was shot in the head as he got out of his car out­side his apart­ment.

His broth­er, Sarosh, said Maniedeo had spent the evening with him and their moth­er vis­it­ing fam­i­ly and friends in San­ta Cruz. Half an hour af­ter he dropped them off at their Sou Sou Lands, Carlsen Field, home on Fri­day, po­lice came to tell them that he had been mur­dered.

Po­lice said the fa­tal shoot­ing took place at around 9.20 pm just af­ter Maniedeo ar­rived at his apart­ment, which is lo­cat­ed be­hind the Long­denville Gen­er­al Hard­ware. As he was about to get out of his black Hon­da Ac­cord sedan, a gun­man dressed in a white arm­less jer­sey, black 3/4 pants and wear­ing a mask ap­proached and fired a sin­gle shot. The killer fled the scene in a sil­ver Nis­san Ti­i­da with a Su­per­man sym­bol on the front wind­screen, head­ing to­wards Ch­agua­nas, eye­wit­ness­es said.

Maniedeo was found slumped over the steer­ing wheel of his car by neigh­bours who con­tact­ed po­lice. He was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he died while be­ing treat­ed. His car was towed to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion for fur­ther pro­cess­ing.

A po­lice team led by In­sp Jack­man and in­clud­ing Sgt Toolaram, Sgt James and Sgt Jod­han processed the scene and launched a search for the sus­pect but up to yes­ter­day no one had been held.

Sarosh, who works with Maniedeo at the fam­i­ly-owned Di­a­mond Stock­pile, said his broth­er was qui­et and was not in­volved in any­thing il­le­gal that would ex­plain his mur­der. He be­lieves the killer mis­took Maniedeo for some­one else.

"I saw him right be­fore he died. Ear­li­er in the day he came and picked up my mom and I, and we went to San­ta Cruz to vis­it fam­i­ly and friends. He dropped us off and left around 9 pm. Min­utes lat­er po­lice came by and they said he was shot. They did not say how bad it was and our fam­i­ly went to the Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre. I don't think he was still alive when we reached there.

"He spent New Year's with us. We had din­ner as a fam­i­ly and he was nor­mal. We worked to­geth­er, he drove my truck. He wasn't in­volved in any­thing bad or dealt with the wrong kind of peo­ple. It looked like they mis­took him for some­one else.

"Even po­lice can't find a mo­tive. This is the sad­dest thing be­cause he was so good, I can't even say any­thing bad about him. Right now my mom and dad are tak­ing it hard. They don't want to even see any­body."

Sarosh said his broth­er had planned to start a hard­ware busi­ness this year.

Maniedeo's neigh­bours ex­pressed shock at his mur­der. They de­scribed him as a qui­et, de­cent man.