RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Armed rob­bers kid­napped O'delle Lal­man-Bap­tiste, the wife of a Point Fortin car deal­er, dur­ing a rob­bery at Carlsen Field, Ch­agua­nas late Fri­day night.

One of the two sus­pects in­volved in the kid­nap­ping/rob­bery was fa­tal­ly shot dur­ing a po­lice op­er­a­tion, while the sec­ond sus­pect re­mains on the run.

Po­lice are now ap­peal­ing for the pub­lic's help in find­ing Lal­man-Bap­tiste, who works as a reg­is­tered nurse with the South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty.

Po­lice said car deal­er Math­ias Bap­tiste, 29, and his wife were trav­el­ling in a white Hyundai H-100 van (reg­is­tra­tion TEH 8727) val­ued at $167,000 around 11:00 pm along Hos­pi­tal Road, Carlsen Field. Bap­tiste told po­lice he stopped the ve­hi­cle to uri­nate when a black Nis­san X-Trail with un­known reg­is­tra­tion pulled up be­side them.

Two male sus­pects came out of the rear of the ve­hi­cle. They were dressed in dark cloth­ing and armed with firearms.

Bap­tiste was robbed of the ve­hi­cle, $1,500 in cash, a black Sam­sung Galaxy A05 smart­phone val­ued at $1,200, and a white iPhone 16 val­ued at $3,500. The sus­pects then forced Lal­man-Bap­tiste in­to the ve­hi­cle and drove off in a norther­ly di­rec­tion.

A re­port was filed with the Freeport Po­lice Sta­tion, and of­fi­cers re­spond­ed by vis­it­ing the scene, con­duct­ing in­ter­views, can­vass­ing for CCTV footage, and is­su­ing a flash alert via the Com­mand Cen­tre.

Us­ing GPS track­ing da­ta, of­fi­cers of the North Cen­tral Task Force lo­cat­ed the stolen ve­hi­cle along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way near the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison. Up­on in­ter­cep­tion, a shootout oc­curred be­tween the po­lice and the sus­pects. One of the sus­pects was shot and tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

The sec­ond sus­pect es­caped on foot in an un­known di­rec­tion and re­mains at large. How­ev­er, po­lice said Lal­man-Bap­tiste has not yet been lo­cat­ed, and po­lice have not con­firmed her cur­rent con­di­tion or where­abouts.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing by of­fi­cers of the Freeport Po­lice Sta­tion and the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions. Po­lice are ap­peal­ing to any­one with in­for­ma­tion to con­tact them im­me­di­ate­ly.