Shane Su­perville

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.