Sco­tia­bank em­ploy­ee and moth­er of two Giselle Crys­tal Pe­ters was look­ing for­ward to com­plet­ing and mov­ing in­to her new home with her fam­i­ly by Christ­mas.

But on Sat­ur­day, when she went to check in on her soon-to-be new house in Gas­par­il­lo, the 38-year-old woman was am­bushed by ban­dits, stabbed in the neck and died. She had gone to the two-storey house at Re­form Res­i­den­tial Phase II, a new hous­ing de­vel­op­ment, to check the progress of the work.  How­ev­er, around 11.35 am, res­i­dents heard scream­ing and three masked men were seen run­ning out of the struc­ture. They en­tered a ma­roon-coloured ve­hi­cle, and one of the men was heard shout­ing, “Dri­ve, dri­ve, dri­ve.”

A res­i­dent found Pe­ters on the ground on the low­er lev­el with a knife in her neck. She died be­fore the po­lice and am­bu­lance got to the scene. 

At her home in Mara­bel­la, yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives were in tears as they tried to come to terms with her mur­der.

They were hop­ing that the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion would re­veal why Pe­ters was killed. 

“She did not even get time to en­joy the home that she worked so hard to build. To­day, I don’t have a big sis­ter. This crime sit­u­a­tion is too out of con­trol,” lament­ed one of Pe­ters’ sis­ters.

Rel­a­tives said Pe­ters worked at Sco­tia­bank’s High Street, San Fer­nan­do branch and had been em­ployed with the bank for more than ten years, dur­ing which time she re­ceived awards.

Her com­mon-law hus­band Tyrell Roberts, who went to To­ba­go with friends last Thurs­day, said he was speak­ing with her on her cell phone when she was at­tacked. She told him she was about to leave the prop­er­ty. He briefly re­called, “Up­on talk­ing to her, I heard a voice in the back­ground and then she said, she phone, she phone, and then the call cut. I kept call­ing back and it wasn’t an­swer­ing,” he said.

Roberts said he grew wor­ried and called his in-laws to check on her, but at that time no one had a ve­hi­cle.

While the in-laws were try­ing to make their way to Gas­par­il­lo, he said he got a call from a friend who works with the am­bu­lance ser­vice that his wife had been killed. He said they had been build­ing their home for the past 11 months. 

Ayan­na, one of Pe­ters’ cousins, said she had been sav­ing her mon­ey to com­plete her home. Not­ing that every year their fam­i­ly had a Christ­mas break­fast or brunch, she said, “Crys­tal was like, ‘I sav­ing my mon­ey to fin­ish my house. Every­thing keep­ing by me this year.’ That was her goal, to move in by Christ­mas and have our fam­i­ly break­fast or brunch by her.”

Lament­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion, she said, “Out of hand, Oh God, the girl was in her own place, mind­ing her busi­ness and do­ing her own thing.” De­spite her pe­tite size, she be­lieves that Pe­ters would have tried to de­fend her­self.

Ayan­na added that Pe­ters was like her sis­ter. She said the moth­er of two worked hard and every­thing she did cen­tred around her two daugh­ters, ages six and nine. “She lived for her chil­dren, the best of every­thing she gave them. They nev­er want­ed for any­thing.”  De­scrib­ing her as kind-heart­ed, qui­et and sweet, she lament­ed, “Crys­tal did not de­serve this.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said yes­ter­day they were still try­ing to de­ter­mine a mo­tive. They said the sus­pects stole Pe­ters’ bag, while her phone was left at the scene. 

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion III are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.