Shas­tri Boodan

A Cen­tral cou­ple who planned on spend­ing the rest of their lives to­geth­er were found shot dead in a car lo­cat­ed in an aban­doned cane field at Fac­to­ry Road, Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The bod­ies of Randy Ram­dass, 28, of Chan­der­nagore Road, Ch­agua­nas and his fi­ancée Stephanie Ani­ta Jagdeo, 27, of Brick­field Road, Cara­pichaima, were dis­cov­ered in Jagdeo’s Nis­san AD Wag­on.

Jagdeo’s body was found in the front seat while Ram­dass’ body was in the rear trunk com­part­ment of the ve­hi­cle.

Po­lice said they al­so found a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na in the ve­hi­cle.

An­gry rel­a­tives be­lieve that the cou­ple was set up and the drugs plant­ed as a de­trac­tion to mis­lead in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

The two were out in con­nec­tion with the sale of a par­cel of land.

Jagdeo’s rel­a­tives were in a state of dis­be­lief when we vis­it­ed their home yes­ter­day.

“She was home yes­ter­day (Sat­ur­day) and she left home about min­utes to four. She re­ceived a call. She is in her busi­ness of re­al es­tate so as some­body call you with land or a house to sell, that is your busi­ness, so you would take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go for it,” Stephan Jagdeo, the broth­er of Stephanie said.

Relatives of Randy Ramdass at the home of the deceased at Chandernagore Road yesterday.

SHASTRI BOODAN

He added, “She left home to view a piece of land in Cou­va but the in­for­ma­tion we are cap­tur­ing now is a lot to process. Oth­er per­sons who had a dis­cus­sion with her on Fri­day with­in her work­space, re­ceived a call from a gen­tle­man. The per­son used an alias name. He had a piece of land to sell and he didn’t want his wife to know about the land and they want­ed to go and view the land. He had no trans­port and they took him with their trans­port and that was it. From yes­ter­day 4 pm she was un­reach­able up to to­day.”

Jagdeo said his sis­ter worked at Ale­scon Readymix and sold re­al es­tate part-time. He said the cou­ple had com­plet­ed 85 per cent of their house at Lime Head Road, Chase Vil­lage and planned to get mar­ried in 2023.

“Who­ev­er did this act, didn’t know what they were do­ing. They didn’t know their plan and ex­e­cut­ed it in this such man­ner to throw off the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I would tell you per­son­al­ly, what they put in that car have noth­ing to do with my sis­ter nor Randy. The in­di­vid­ual who com­mit­ted that act, wher­ev­er you is sir, I hope you rest in peace. God has a plan for you in time to come and who­ev­er this is, some­thing has busi­ness in it and who­ev­er is the peo­ple who or­ches­trat­ed this whole en­tire mur­der, not one, two lives lost, dou­ble lives lost, the peo­ple who called the shot up­on my sis­ter be very care­ful.”

At the home of Ram­dass, his fa­ther Amar Ram­dass, 50, was be­ing con­soled by rel­a­tives.

His grand­moth­er Carmeli­ta Ram­dass, 78, was try­ing to cope with the death.

“All I want is jus­tice, to see whoso­ev­er do this with my grand­child...I want jus­tice.”

Carmeli­ta took care of Randy when his moth­er died over 20 years ago.

Nan­daram Ram­dass, the pa­ter­nal un­cle of the de­ceased al­so rub­bished the drugs found in the car. Ram­dass too said it was plant­ed to dis­tract in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

Couva North MP Ravi Ratiram speaks with the grandmother of the deceased Carmelita Ramdass.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Ram­dass said when Randy didn’t re­turn Stephanie’s fa­ther came look­ing for her. He said Randy was a hard work­er.

“He don’t be in any­thing out of the or­di­nary.”

Ram­dass said his nephew was an elec­tri­cian who went in­to re­al es­tate around two years ago.

Cou­va North Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) Ravi Rati­ram said the de­ceased once shared a close re­la­tion­ship with the of­fice of the MP.

Rati­ram said the mur­der ap­peared to have been com­mit­ted else­where since po­lice dis­cov­ered a trail of blood lead­ing to where the ve­hi­cle with the bod­ies was dis­cov­ered.

Rati­ram said he al­so be­lieves the drugs in the ve­hi­cle were al­so plant­ed to throw off in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“We have lost count of the num­ber of mur­ders. The ques­tion is how many more Prime Min­is­ter? How many more must die be­fore you act, be­fore you do some­thing?”

Rati­ram said the Min­is­ter and Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty are fail­ing the peo­ple of T&T.

Rati­ram said sev­er­al calls have been made for in­creased light­ing in his con­stituen­cy and to prop­er­ly equip the po­lice ser­vice in cen­tral.

He ac­cused Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds of sleep­ing on the job.

“He is sleep­ing on the job and it’s about time that PM, that you take ac­tion and you recog­nise that is no longer play­ing pol­i­tics and play­ing with emo­tions. You are play­ing with lives of the cit­i­zens. The first con­sti­tu­tion­al right that cit­i­zens have is the right to life and you are not up­hold­ing that.”

Po­lice are yet to es­tab­lish a mo­tive for the killings.