As the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mur­der of re­tiree Leela Hy­acinth Danclar con­tin­ues, rel­a­tives are search­ing for an­swers about why a woman they de­scribed as qui­et and God-far­ing was killed in such a heinous man­ner.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia short­ly af­ter her body was iden­ti­fied at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, Danclar’s cousin Car­ol May­ers said the fam­i­ly was still reel­ing from the death of an­oth­er rel­a­tive­—PC Dale May­ers—in May, and was now over­whelmed by the shock­ing and grue­some mur­der of Danclar.

PC May­ers was shot by an armed man dur­ing a botched rob­bery on May 13 at the Unique Bar and Restau­rant in Ch­agua­nas, while lim­ing with his wife and a friend.

Rel­a­tives re­vealed that May­ers and Danclar were cousins.

Car­ol May­ers said the fam­i­ly was “still in deep grief” over the loss of Dale and cou­pled with Danclar’s killing, the sit­u­a­tion was “re­al­ly, re­al­ly hard on the en­tire fam­i­ly.”

Danclar was found by po­lice ly­ing on the floor of her ran­sacked bed­room with a pil­low over her face, and blood smeared around her gen­i­tals on Mon­day af­ter­noon. A sheet had been par­tial­ly cov­er­ing the body.

Her 90-year-old moth­er, who suf­fers from ad­vanced de­men­tia, was found un­harmed in an­oth­er bed­room.

Al­though it was be­lieved Danclar’s mur­der may have oc­curred dur­ing an al­leged home in­va­sion, her cousin Car­ol spec­u­lat­ed, “I think maybe is a crime of pas­sion, as some­body may have been look­ing at her from out­side as she doesn’t wear jew­ellery, so you can­not say you com­ing to look for that as she didn’t have any jew­ellery.”

How­ev­er, she sought to ra­tio­nalise the man­ner and cir­cum­stances which led to the killing, adding, “You nev­er know who was watch­ing her.”

Asked if Danclar had known or been in­volved with any­one who may have want­ed to harm her, Car­ol said the qui­et, kind, hum­ble and de­vout Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist was com­mit­ted to God, the church, her son, el­der­ly moth­er and the fam­i­ly.

“She is de­vot­ed to the Lord and she don’t en­ter­tain any­body. Some­times peo­ple would be look­ing at you and you just don’t know,” she in­sist­ed.

The cousin said she could not say what was tak­en from the house. She said they were await­ing the ar­rival of Danclar’s son from abroad, as he was fa­mil­iar with his moth­er’s be­long­ings and would be able to as­sist the po­lice with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Danclar’s 34-year-old son, who is a doc­tor prac­tis­ing in Ja­maica, is due to ar­rive in the coun­try by the end of the week.

Car­ol said the fam­i­ly was baf­fled, sad­dened and an­gry over the killing of a “woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Re­call­ing mem­o­ries of Danclar, her cousin de­scribed her as hav­ing an im­pec­ca­ble fash­ion sense.

“She was very styl­ish, al­ways put to­geth­er very nice­ly. She was a dress­er. She al­ways match­ing, her fas­ci­na­tor would al­ways match her out­fit, her shoes match­ing her hand­bag,” Car­ol re­called.

The rel­a­tive added that Danclar kept fit by ex­er­cis­ing with a group from church and would of­ten go hik­ing.

“She al­so loved to trav­el. She would go by her son in Ja­maica and did all the ex­cit­ing things over there. She was a very qui­et per­son, nev­er had a bad word to say about any­body.”

Car­ol said she and Danclar were plan­ning a trip to Dubai next year to vis­it a cousin who lives there.

While strug­gling to cope with the mur­ders of May­ers and now Danclar, Car­ol was an­gry about the crime sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try.

“Our ju­di­cial sys­tem is the worst. If a judge sees some­body with three and four con­vic­tions be­fore them, why the hell you giv­ing that per­son bail?” she asked.

“Why? They come be­fore you with a gun charge, why are you giv­ing this per­son a bail? What it is go­ing on? They are the prob­lem ... too much of soft, easy bail for these crim­i­nals. That is the prob­lem be­cause it is re­peat of­fend­ers do­ing plen­ty of the crimes.”

Nine killed in home in­va­sions up to June 30

Jan­u­ary

• ↓Busi­ness­man Richard Ramkissoon died at hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing beat­en by six men armed with guns and cut­lass­es around 3 am on Jan­u­ary 20, dur­ing a break-in at his home in Cres­cent Dri­ve, Mau­si­ca Road, D’Abadie.

Feb­ru­ary

• ↓Re­tired teacher Hy­acinth Gard­ner, 85, of Lime Boule­vard, San­ta Rosa Heights, was found dead in her home on Feb­ru­ary 6. The US cit­i­zen was last seen two days be­fore and had been car­ry­ing out re­pairs at her home as she vis­it­ed for Car­ni­val.

• ↓Akeem Ralph, 26, of Val­ley View, Pin­to Road, Ari­ma, was shot as he de­fend­ed his fam­i­ly against armed in­trud­ers on Feb­ru­ary 24.

April

• ↓Farmer Aquie Per­sad, 58, was killed at his home at Wel­come Road North, Cunu­pia, around 9.20 pm on April 7 by three armed men who de­mand­ed cash and valu­ables be­fore beat­ing and shoot­ing him in front of his wife and chil­dren.

June

• ↓Busi­ness­man Al­lan Bab­wah, 37, of Ex­change Lots, Cou­va, was killed around 10.30 pm on June 7 by armed men who robbed the fam­i­ly of cash and cell­phones dur­ing a home in­va­sion.

• ↓Mar­ket­ing man­ag­er Stephen Sookhan, 59, of Oa­sis Gar­dens, En­deav­our, Ch­agua­nas, was found hacked to death around 10.50 pm at his home on June 19, af­ter an al­leged rob­bery.

• ↓Cousins Mal­colm Richard­son, 21; An­dre Mel­oney, 20; and Sher­wyn Mac­Fall­en, 17; were killed around 1.10 am on June 23, af­ter gun­men stormed a house at Men­doza Street, Matu­ra, where they were asleep.