An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A com­bi­na­tion of al­co­hol, along with the noise em­a­nat­ing from an apart­ment above at Build­ing 16, Orop­une Gar­dens, Pi­ar­co, are be­lieved to be what led a sus­pect to kill a fa­ther and son on Sat­ur­day.

Fol­low­ing the stab­bing ram­page around mid­day at the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s (HDC) apart­ment com­plex at Fourth Av­enue, Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, 46, lay dead. His son, Im­raz Mo­hammed, 23, died at the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty a short while lat­er; and his 17-year-old daugh­ter, Nazeera Mo­hammed, was left nurs­ing stab wounds to the head and up­per body. She was fight­ing for her life at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, last night, af­ter she took a turn for the worse yes­ter­day. Rel­a­tives re­ceived a call around 1 pm in­di­cat­ing her vi­tals had wors­ened.

Mean­while, 19-year-old Nicholas Di­matos, of Build­ing 15, who was stabbed in the low­er back with an ice pick dur­ing the at­tack, was said to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal last night.

The sus­pect, who was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Ma­jor Crimes Unit min­utes af­ter the dead­ly in­ci­dent, re­mained in po­lice cus­tody yes­ter­day.

In­di­cat­ing that af­ter joy re­al­ly does come sor­row, Im­ti­az’s daugh­ter-in-law, Sera Char­lie, 24, yes­ter­day said the fam­i­ly in­tend­ed to spend the hol­i­day week­end camp­ing, as he had cel­e­brat­ed his 46th birth­day on Thurs­day.

Char­lie re­vealed that she and her hus­band, Im­raz Mo­hammed, met her de­ceased rel­a­tives at a bar on Thurs­day, where they be­gan the lim­ing.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day in the stair­well out­side the apart­ment where her rel­a­tives were stabbed on Sat­ur­day, she said the fam­i­ly was in a cel­e­bra­to­ry mood for the long week­end.

Point­ing to the Mo­hammeds’ third-floor apart­ment, which is di­rect­ly on top of the sus­pect’s apart­ment in the build­ing, Char­lie ad­mit­ted the sus­pect of­ten com­plained of the noise cre­at­ed by the young chil­dren play­ing and run­ning in the apart­ment above and had spo­ken to the Mo­hammed fam­i­ly about it sev­er­al times.

Oth­er rel­a­tives present, yes­ter­day, al­so said the Mo­hammed fam­i­ly had to cau­tion the sus­pect about ha­rass­ing Nazeera on more than one oc­ca­sion, and there had been a con­stant “back and forth” be­tween them.

De­spite this, it was claimed the HDC neigh­bours were some­times seen lim­ing and drink­ing to­geth­er, as was al­so the case on Fri­day night.

Sat­ur­day’s killing spree took place around noon, the morn­ing af­ter the Mo­hammed fam­i­ly and the sus­pect had been lim­ing and drink­ing.

Char­lie said, “The bac­cha­nal start to hap­pen the night be­fore the mur­ders, as the man down­stairs call him (Im­ti­az) back to apol­o­gise to him for what­ev­er he was say­ing to his daugh­ter.”

Char­lie con­firmed Nazeera had al­ways com­plained of the sus­pect ha­rass­ing her.

They woke on Sat­ur­day morn­ing to be­gin prepa­ra­tions for the camp­ing trip. Char­lie said Di­matos and a woman from the op­po­site build­ing were stand­ing on the land­ing when the dra­ma be­gan un­fold­ing.

Guardian Me­dia was told the first per­son wound­ed in the at­tack was Di­matos, who was dragged by the sus­pect down the stairs while be­ing stabbed in the low­er back with an ice pick.

“When my moth­er-in-law went and wake up my fa­ther-in-law, he walked down­stairs to see what was hap­pen­ing. And when he come back up­stairs, he sit down in he place with the blade so if the man come, he go have self-de­fence for him­self.”

Fright­ened af­ter the sus­pect and Im­ti­az be­gan quar­relling, she said as items were hurled back and forth, she rushed the chil­dren in­to the apart­ment to keep them safe.

“When I come back out­side, I see my broth­er-in-law lie down on the floor ... he get stab on the head and he just ly­ing down, bleed­ing out,” she re­called.

“My sis­ter-in-law get stab in the head and shoul­ders, and they cor­ner dad­dy by the front door and I see the man back ... I feel if I had come out­side, I woul­da get stab too. Dad­dy couldn’t move from where he was.”

Im­ti­az died at the scene af­ter be­ing stabbed sev­er­al times in the back by a knife, while Im­raz, who was re­port­ed­ly stabbed with an ice pick, lat­er suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

Char­lie de­scribed Im­raz as “not all there” af­ter he suf­fered brain dam­age at a ten­der age. De­spite his dis­abil­i­ty, she smiled as she re­called, “He used to be talk­ing to him­self so no­body coul­da re­al­ly com­mu­ni­cate with him.

“But af­ter I get to know him, we coul­da com­mu­ni­cate and me and him get re­al close. He was a good per­son to me ... I used to call him broth­er-in-law and we un­der­stood one an­oth­er.”

Im­ti­az, she said, was a nice, car­ing per­son who was al­ways fo­cused on en­sur­ing his fam­i­ly’s needs were met.

Ad­mit­ting the Mo­hammed fam­i­ly was now feel­ing un­safe, Char­lie said, “I had­da be strong for my moth­er-in-law and them chil­dren.”

The de­ceased men were said to have been liv­ing at the lo­ca­tion for the past 16 years, while the sus­pect re­port­ed­ly moved in sev­er­al years ago and lived alone in the rent­ed apart­ment.

Au­top­sies on the Mo­hammed men are ex­pect­ed to be per­formed to­mor­row at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.