Ak­ile Si­mon

A po­lice of­fi­cer as­signed to the Or­gan­ised Crime Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau (OC­NFB) shot and killed his com­mon-law wife be­fore shoot­ing him­self in the head dur­ing a do­mes­tic row the woman's work­place in Curepe yes­ter­day. The in­ci­dent sent shock waves through­out the Po­lice Ser­vice af­ter news broke that PC Sean James shot and killed his com­mon-law wife, Don­na Noel, 45. The shoot­ing took place at the East­ern Main Road of­fice of fam­i­ly doc­tor Wahid Mo­hammed, where Noel had been em­ployed as a sec­re­tary. There were no pa­tients in the doc­tor's of­fice when the in­ci­dent hap­pened.

Po­lice said they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that James was "put out" of the apart­ment on Harp­er Lane, Reid Lane, D'Abadie, which he shared with Noel.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they were told that Harp­er was put out of the apart­ment by James some­time on Tues­day night, dur­ing a do­mes­tic row.

Po­lice said that around 1.45 pm, Noel was at her work­place when James ar­rived. Em­ploy­ees told in­ves­ti­ga­tors they went out­side for a short pe­ri­od to give the cou­ple some pri­va­cy. Po­lice said when the work­ers re­turned, both vic­tims were dis­cov­ered in a pool of blood, near a face basin. The em­ploy­ees said they did not hear any loud ex­plo­sions be­cause the rain was falling very heav­i­ly. They told of­fi­cers they were aware the cou­ple had been hav­ing do­mes­tic prob­lems. Of­fi­cers are work­ing on the the­o­ry Noel was shot af­ter she re­fused to rec­on­cile her sev­ered re­la­tion­ship with James.

Sources at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion said that around 11.45 am, James signed for a .38 re­volver and six live rounds of am­mu­ni­tion and said he was go­ing on in­quiries. Of­fi­cers at the sta­tion de­scribed him as a "cool tess." They ad­mit­ted he had do­mes­tic prob­lems but nev­er thought it would have re­sult­ed to mur­der.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Ra­jen­dranath Ma­haraj, head of the North­ern Di­vi­sion, said Noel died at the scene from what ap­peared to be gun­shot wounds to the head and chest. James suc­cumbed to his in­juries at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex around 5.55 pm. Af­ter Noel was shot, she slumped to the ground and died in a sit­ting po­si­tion.

James was dis­cov­ered next to her with his ser­vice re­volver clutched in his hands. He shot him self once in the right side of the tem­ple with the bul­let ex­it­ing through the left. James, po­lice said, was a lec­tur­er up­stairs the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion where he taught po­lice of­fi­cers cus­tomer re­la­tionS skills. A team of of­fi­cers from the North­ern Di­vi­sion and the Re­gion II Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions led by Snr Supt Ma­haraj, and in­clud­ing act­ing Supt Abra­ham, ASP Han­sraj, act­ing ASP Abra­ham, In­sps Nel­son and Ramdeen, Sgt Parks, act­ing Cpl Go­sine and PCs Su­perville and Ra­moutar, vis­it­ed the scene were up to late yes­ter­day con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.