Up to late yes­ter­day evening, po­lice were still try­ing to de­ter­mine a mo­tive for the mur­ders of a man and his com­mon-law wife at their mi­ni-mart on Pe­nal Rock Road, Pe­nal, on Mon­day night. 

Of­fi­cers said Radick Ajod­ha, 31, and Jenelle Thomp­son, 36, own­er of Jenoie’s Mi­ni Mart, lived a short dis­tance away from where they were shot dead. 

Ini­tial po­lice re­ports stat­ed that short­ly be­fore 11 pm, an anony­mous caller con­tact­ed the Po­lice Com­mand Cen­tre about a shoot­ing at Rock Road near Hope Trace. 

When the of­fi­cers ar­rived at the scene, res­i­dents di­rect­ed them to the mi­ni-mart where they found Ajod­ha’s body at the back, while Thomp­son’s body was in­side the busi­ness place. Po­lice found 16 spent 5.56 mm shells at the scene. 

The cou­ple was shot mul­ti­ple times. 

Speak­ing with re­porters at the scene, Kris­syann Vial­va, who is Ajod­ha’s sis­ter, said she was shocked. 

“This was the last news I was ex­pect­ing to hear. And for me to come home this morn­ing af­ter a 12-hour shift and get this news is re­al­ly ter­ri­ble,” said Vial­va, who works as a se­cu­ri­ty guard. 

The griev­ing sis­ter de­scribed her broth­er as a lov­ing per­son.

“So what­so­ev­er play­off and what­so­ev­er hap­pen, I re­al­ly can’t say. But, from deep down in­side if you not on noth­ing, no­body wouldn’t come and do you any­thing. Is ei­ther some­thing went wrong or is off of jeal­ousy, be­cause it had cer­tain times he use to be telling me it was fight down thing and all I used to tell him is that he have to take it down, pat down your­self be­cause you have a young daugh­ter. I re­al­ly can’t say what hap­pen,” cried Vial­va.

Vial­va said her broth­er and Thomp­son had been op­er­at­ing the par­lour for about four or five years.

She last spent time with him on April 13, her birth­day. 

“We laugh, we talk, we lime a lit­tle bit, and then we gone. He was nor­mal. I leave him as a jol­ly per­son,” she said. 

The sis­ter ad­mit­ted she was not con­fi­dent that she would re­ceive jus­tice from the po­lice and in­stead was leav­ing the per­pe­tra­tors to God. 

“To me, the on­ly how I think we could get jus­tice is from the man above be­cause the crime sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad is every day some­body get­ting shoot. Every day some­body get­ting kill. Bod­ies falling like fly and at the end of sto­ry, noth­ing com­ing out of any­thing. Every­thing just stays one way and every­thing just re­peat­ing,” she com­plained.”

Mean­while, Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj, the lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the area, called for an in­creased po­lice pres­ence in the area. He al­so asked for more re­sources for the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice and TTPS of­fi­cers in the dis­trict. 

He lament­ed that crime was af­fect­ing every area across the coun­try.