Sascha Wil­son

Lig­a­ture stran­gu­la­tion.

That’s how plant op­er­a­tor Ryan Johnit­ty was killed, ac­cord­ing to an au­top­sy per­formed yes­ter­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain.

Johnit­ty, 33, was found on Tues­day on a stair­case in­side his home by his par­ents.

A white plas­tic bag was over his head, a cord and belt were tied around his neck and there was al­so a wound to his neck.

Em­ployed at Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed, Johnit­ty had worked the 7 am to 7 pm shift on Mon­day.

Nei­ther his friends nor his rel­a­tives heard from him on Tues­day which was un­usu­al so his par­ents went to his home to check on him.

The as­sailants stole his Kia Op­ti­ma car but the po­lice found it on Wednes­day at Dol­ly Street, Mara­bel­la.

Johnit­ty lived alone at his Palm Dri­ve, Dow Vil­lage, South Oropouche home and was the on­ly child of his par­ents.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, his moth­er Myr­na broke down in tears.

She said, “When I think he would have buried me. I am very hurt about this. When you think that may be if he had died from the COVID or an ac­ci­dent or some­thing I would have tak­en it dif­fer­ent­ly but some­body mur­dered him. No, no, no, he did not de­serve that.”

She said they were not even aware that he was as­sist­ing peo­ple who were in need dur­ing this pan­dem­ic be­cause he was a pri­vate per­son and nev­er want­ed to be in the fore­front.

He shared a strong bond with her and his fa­ther.

“I mould­ed him in the right way that I thought was best for him. One child I have. I nev­er spare the rod with him, I did all that when he was a young ten­der age. When was time for licks I give him licks when it is time for book I give him book, time for fun he had fun and at the end of the day he grow to be a nice young man with re­spect and he had a great sense of hu­mour,” she added.

She said her son was not dis­re­spect­ful and was nev­er in any quar­rel or fight with any­one.

“He was very hard­work­ing. He did not mix mat­ters with his work, al­ways at work on time. He was church-go­ing, a great role mod­el in the church and every­thing,” she al­so said

The moth­er said peo­ple from all over the coun­try have been reach­ing out to them to ex­press their con­do­lences.

The fam­i­ly held a prayer ser­vice for him at their home yes­ter­day.

De­scrib­ing the Johnit­ty fam­i­ly, who lives in Ce­dros as re­spectable and church-go­ing peo­ple, Ce­dros Coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said the mur­der shocked the com­mu­ni­ty.

“It is very sad. We lost a very in­no­v­a­tive and young per­son who give a lot to the com­mu­ni­ty. He was a church-go­ing per­son. I haven’t known the in­di­vid­ual to be in any sort of bad be­hav­iour. His par­ents are sound com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers.”

He said on Tues­day when Johnit­ty’s moth­er could not reach him she con­tact­ed him to reach out to one of his friends to see whether they could get him on the phone.

“When I re­turned the call to say that he was not an­swer­ing was around the same time they dis­cov­ered his body in the house.

Teelucks­ingh was hope­ful that the per­pe­tra­tors would be brought to jus­tice.

Up to last evening, the po­lice had not made any ar­rests.