Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Hor­ror and fear rocked a com­mu­ni­ty in Ste Madeleine yes­ter­day, af­ter gun­men stormed a fam­i­ly home, killing a moth­er and her son, and crit­i­cal­ly in­jur­ing two oth­er rel­a­tives.

Grace­lyn Ram­ber­an, 48, was shot in her head and died in their home while her son Randy Ram­per­sad, 25, was shot dead as he ran for his life.

In a des­per­ate at­tempt to de­fend him­self and his fam­i­ly, Ram­ber­an’s hus­band Vi­jay Ram­per­sad grabbed a cut­lass, but he was al­so shot in head. The 58-year-old man is now fight­ing for his life at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Randy’s 22-year-old wife was al­so se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

The three gun­men re­port­ed­ly en­tered the fam­i­ly’s home at Pe­ter­loo Street in Friend­ship Vil­lage some­time af­ter 2 am by pry­ing open a door.

The vic­tims had lit­tle time to re­act.

Ram­ber­an, a do­mes­tic work­er, was shot in the head and died on the spot.

A rel­a­tive, who wished to re­main anony­mous, said they be­lieve that the as­sailants had one in­ten­tion—to kill.

“The ban­dits was in­side and while they was shoot­ing, my broth­er-in-law pull a cut­lass and run one of the ban­dits down­stairs. When he run him down­stairs, he just turn around and hit him a bul­let in the head and he fall down on the ground. My nephew run out­side by the main road and they shoot him in the back and he fall down on the ground where he died,” the rel­a­tive said.

A 42-year-old rel­a­tive who lived down­stairs the house with his wife said he heard the loud ex­plo­sions around 2.25 am. Short­ly af­ter, he checked on his rel­a­tives and saw Randy’s body on the ground and Randy’s fa­ther and his wife walk­ing on the road with gun­shot wounds. He said his aunt was al­so bleed­ing from gun­shot wounds and mo­tion­less on the ground in the house.

Rel­a­tives be­lieve the mur­ders were linked to the “bad com­pa­ny” Randy kept.

Ram­ber­an’s broth­er, Son­ny­boy, said the as­sailants did not steal any­thing.

“To be hon­est, he (nephew) had some bad com­pa­ny. He got ar­rest­ed for drugs. I do not know how far the case reached,” he said.

Son­ny­boy said his sis­ter did do­mes­tic work while his broth­er-in-law was a ma­son and part-time PH dri­ver.

“I feel peo­ple cre­at­ing their own crime be­cause of the things they were do­ing. Peo­ple who deal­ing drugs and have en­e­mies,” he said.

An­oth­er rel­a­tive agreed that rob­bery was not the mo­tive. “They took pig­foot and broke down the front door, and when they opened it, the la­dy (Ram­ber­an) was right there. They come through the door and she got shot first. We heard the first shot, and about eight or ten af­ter in the house. She got one in the head and about three in her but­tocks. She died on the ground.”

The shoot­ing rocked the vil­lage, which is still reel­ing over the mur­der of 13-year-old school­girl Mari­ah Seenath, al­most three weeks ago.

Vil­lagers were re­luc­tant to speak to the me­dia, but one res­i­dent lament­ed the crime sit­u­a­tion, say­ing the killings must stop.

“This have to stop. All my neigh­bours fright­en. That hurt­ing the com­mu­ni­ty,” he said.

The man com­plained that there were not enough po­lice pa­trols or street­lights in the area.

“I do stu­pid­ness but I change my life. What I do now is plant my gar­den and drink one day,” he said.

Res­i­dents were not con­fi­dent that they would get jus­tice, as they not­ed that the po­lice had still not yet ar­rest­ed a sus­pect in Seenath’s mur­der.

Seenath, a Form Three stu­dent at San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School, was found dead by a res­i­dent around 12.50 pm on Sep­tem­ber 20, about five feet in the bush­es off a track near the recre­ation ground in her neigh­bour­hood at Friend­ship Vil­lage, Ste Madeleine. An au­top­sy re­vealed she was beat­en to death.

Seenath lived at Cir­cle Dri­ve, a few streets away from where the dou­ble mur­der oc­curred.

Kevin Lalchan, who has been lob­by­ing for jus­tice in the Paria Fu­el div­ing tragedy, has arranged a can­dle­light vig­il for Mari­ah, which is ex­pect­ed to be at­tend­ed by rel­a­tives, friends, neigh­bours and well-wish­ers to­day—which is al­so In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the Girl Child. He said they are seek­ing jus­tice for Mari­ah and ad­vo­cat­ing against acts of vi­o­lence and abuse against girls and women.

Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion III Homi­cide Bu­reau are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the lat­est mur­ders.