Senior Reporter
shane.superville@guardian.co.tt
The mother of a murdered Belmont woman says she is leaving vengeance in the hands of God, as she remains deeply hurt and shaken following her daughter’s murder yesterday.
Police said the woman’s daughter, 34-year-old Onella Parks, was walking to work along Gloster Lodge Road at 6.30 am, when she was followed by a gunman in a black hoodie. On seeing the man, Parks reportedly ran onto Lover’s Lane but was chased and shot several times by the attacker, who ran away. Passers-by took Parks to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where she was declared dead.
Crime scene investigators found 13 spent shells at the scene.
Speaking with Guardian Media at the family’s Agostini Street home shortly after the murder, Lydia Parks referred to the number of shots fired by her daughter’s killer and could not understand what prompted such violence towards her.
“That is a woman. What a woman could do you, you have to give her all those gunshots? She never rob you, she ain’t take nothing from you, she never killed any of your family, you killed my child just so?” she said.
“So, you feel I will lay down and see you kill my child and not pray hard to get revenge? The Lord have to give me my revenge.”
The elder Parks said Onella’s 13-year-old daughter—her granddaughter—received a call from a friend who lives near the scene of the shooting, who asked her to check on her mother because she was seen walking in the area at the same time of the shooting. Shortly after, Parks received another call from her neighbour confirming that Onella was shot.
Parks and her granddaughter then went to the hospital, where they learned that Onella died.
“It’s unfair to leave a child motherless. She has one child and they left my grandchild motherless.”
Parks said Onella was the third of her children to be murdered. In March 2016, her son Joe Parks was found with his throat slashed while awaiting trial in the Remand Section of the Golden Grove Prison. Her first son Blair “Fergie” Parks was murdered on Mother’s Day years ago.
The elder Parks said while she could not confirm what prompted her daughter’s murder, she suspected it may be linked to a recent warning given to her about liming in a nearby section of the neighbourhood.
“She used to go down Gloster Lodge Road to lime with some people in a shop and she came back and said, ‘Mammy, they don’t want me there,’ so I said, if they don’t want you there, stay out of Gloster Lodge Road.”
“A man might tell you he doesn’t want you on the block. What block? This whole vicinity, this whole area belongs to Jesus. There is no block because we have to dead and leave the block,” she said.
When Guardian Media visited the scene, officers from the Port-of-Spain Task Force and Homicide Bureau of Investigations Region I were seen canvassing the area.
Several parents stopped to look at the officers collecting evidence while others looked on from the safety of their homes nearby.
One man who lives near the murder scene recalled hearing gunfire as his own daughter was preparing for school and lamented the reckless nature of criminals willing to strike at any time regardless of how many people were around.
Referring to the number of people walking nearby at the time of the shooting, the man said while he was grateful no one else was hurt, it was clear the State of Emergency was ineffective.
“There’s a shop around the corner, there’s another shop here, you don’t know who would have been on the road getting a newspaper or getting things for their children ready for school. This SoE is a waste of time, you would have thought there would be a more forceful police response, look somebody is dead. All you’re doing is giving bandits a time to rest.”
Police said while enquiries are ongoing, they believe the motive for Parks’ murder may be gang related.
As of yesterday afternoon, the murder toll for 2025 was 12 compared to 23 for the same period in 2024.
