Fran­cis Joseph

Chaitram Gayah was a well-known au­to parts deal­er of San Fer­nan­do. But he was al­so well con­nect­ed to the un­der­world. He knew peo­ple and did shady things. He knew Dole Chadee, but no one can con­firm that he had a busi­ness re­la­tion­ship with the Pi­paro king. Gayah was charged with mur­der, but all the wit­ness­es end­ed up dead and he was freed. One month lat­er, Gayah went miss­ing and was nev­er found again.

He was last seen on June 24, 1994, when he left his La Ro­maine home with one Vish­nudath Shar­ma, al­so called Vishram Shar­ma. His wife saw him off, he was go­ing to Mar­aval to con­duct a busi­ness deal. He was in­volved in the sale of spare parts and/or ve­hi­cles. Gayah left his home around 10 am with Shar­ma, who lived at Mon Stew­art Vil­lage, Princes Town. They were go­ing to meet Im­ran Ali, a no­to­ri­ous crim­i­nal who was once charged with the mur­der of Port-of-Spain jew­eller, Surindra Maraj. Ali agreed to meet Gayah and Shar­ma at KFC, Mar­aval. No one can say with cer­tain­ty if Gayah met Ali in Mar­aval. One thing is cer­tain, Gayah and Shar­ma were nev­er seen again. No one can say if Ali had any­thing to do with the dis­ap­pear­ance of the two men.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said that Gayah had sold 19 cars to Ali. He was nev­er paid for the cars, so he de­cid­ed to go to Mar­aval and try to get $250,000 from Ali. On the morn­ing he dis­ap­peared, Gayah, 36, told his wife he was go­ing to col­lect the mon­ey which was owed to him. He left home dri­ving his white Maz­da, PAY 1202. When he did not re­turn lat­er that day, his wife re­port­ed him miss­ing. Po­lice launched a mas­sive search for Gayah and Shar­ma, but they were nev­er found. There were re­ports that Gayah went to Brazil to es­cape the clutch­es of un­der­world char­ac­ters, but the po­lice dis­pelled that, say­ing that Gayah was killed and buried some­where.

They can­not ques­tion Ali, be­cause he was killed in a shoot-out with the po­lice a few years ago. Ali was one of four men charged with the mur­der of the jew­eller. They were found guilty and sen­tenced to death, but lat­er freed on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty, not be­cause of the lack of ev­i­dence. Ali came out of jail and ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, he had a hand in the mur­der of for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Sel­wyn Richard­son, out­side his Cas­cade home on June 20, 1995. Po­lice say Ali be­came a nui­sance and was in­volved in kid­nap­pings when he was killed in the shoot-out.

The man Gayah

Gayah was al­so known as Cr­is­han Gayah and Chaitram Ramkissoon.

Gayah and one Leslie Ross were charged with the mur­der of Steve "Creamy" Tan­nis in 1982. It was al­leged that Tan­nis and oth­er men set out in a pirogue for the Gulf of Paria. The boat re­turned hours lat­er with­out Tan­nis. It was al­leged that he was killed and his body dumped at sea. The body was nev­er found. The pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry was held be­fore Mag­is­trate Bas­deo Mulchan in the Point Fortin Dis­trict Court. At the end of the in­quiry, Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, and Ger­ald Stew­art, rep­re­sent­ing Gayah, and Desmond Al­lum, SC, ap­pear­ing for Ross, made a no-case sub­mis­sion. The mag­is­trate up­held the sub­mis­sion and Gayah and Ross were freed on Au­gust 19, 1986.

This case was men­tioned in the con­tro­ver­sial Scott Drug Re­port which was leaked in 1987. Af­ter his ac­quit­tal, Gayah left Trinidad and stayed away for sev­er­al years. Dur­ing this time, sev­er­al of the pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es, who had giv­en ev­i­dence against him, had died. The on­ly liv­ing wit­ness was Se­nior Supt May­hew Al­leyne, then head of the Homi­cide Bu­reau.

Re­ar­rest­ed sev­en years lat­er

Gayah even­tu­al­ly re­turned to Trinidad. In 1994, He was ar­rest­ed at a house in San Fer­nan­do on a judge's war­rant and or­dered to stand tri­al at the San Fer­nan­do As­sizes on the same charge of mur­der­ing Tan­nis. He was sent to the Port-of-Spain State Prison to await his tri­al. The case was called be­fore Jus­tice Harold Koy­lass in the Port-of-Spain High Court in May 1994, around the same time, the po­lice ar­rest­ed Chadee and nine mem­bers of his gang for the mur­ders of four mem­bers of a Williamsville fam­i­ly. But the tri­al did not last long. Mark Mo­hammed, who was then a state at­tor­ney, ten­dered death cer­tifi­cates for five peo­ple, all pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es.

�2 Wit­ness David Tan­nis was shot and killed on No­vem­ber 6, 1992, at Blitz Vil­lage, Pleas­antville. n Wit­ness Ed­die John­son was shot and killed on Jan­u­ary 20, 1992, at Poona Road, Williamsville.

�2 Wit­ness Adol­phus Lewis died of nat­ur­al caus­es on April 16, 1988.

�2 Co-ac­cused Leslie Ross drowned on June 8, 1992.

�2 Wit­ness Steve Nia­math was shot at his home on Oc­to­ber 8, 1989, and died ten days lat­er at hos­pi­tal.

Mo­hammed, now a judge, called Supt Al­leyne to give de­tails about the wit­ness­es. Af­ter Al­leyne com­plet­ed his ev­i­dence, Mo­hammed threw in the tow­el, and for the sec­ond time, Gayah was freed. That was on May 24, 1994. Mo­hammed said based on in­struc­tions, the war­rant could not have been ex­e­cut­ed on Gayah be­cause he was in Pana­ma. But Ma­haraj de­nied this, say­ing his client was op­er­at­ing his busi­ness in San Fer­nan­do. On Au­gust 2, 1994, the charred re­mains of a body were found at Tasker Road, Bar­rack­pore. Po­lice thought it could have been Gayah's. It turned out to be some­one else.

The mys­tery con­tin­ued, and Gayah re­mains at large. In 2003, nine years af­ter they dis­ap­peared, the wives of both Gayah and Shar­ma, ap­plied to the High Court for let­ters of ad­min­is­tra­tion for both men. They have now been de­clared legal­ly dead. But what re­al­ly hap­pened to Gayah and Shar­ma?