Gail Alexan­der

To­day will be a day of fresh heart­break in Ari­ma, as the four Pe­terkin chil­dren, who were mur­dered at Heights of Gua­napo on Sep­tem­ber 21, will be laid to rest, and what is left of their fam­i­ly haunt­ed by the mem­o­ry, clings to­geth­er bereft of peace.

Ane­sa Ram­per­sad, moth­er of the late Shane, Tiffany, Ar­i­an­na and Faith Pe­terkin, broke down in tears while speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, as she con­tem­plat­ed the mo­ment when she will face her chil­dren’s life­less bod­ies for the last time to­day.

“I don’t even want to go...I can’t see my chil­dren in a box...! I was say­ing I just want­ed to see them one last time...and I can’t even do that!...But it’s the last chance, as I would nev­er see them again,” Ram­per­sad added, cry­ing long and hard.

She was, of course, mak­ing ref­er­ence to the fact that there will be a closed cas­ket ser­vice due to the poor con­di­tion of the chil­dren’s bod­ies.

The fu­ner­al will be held at Allen’s Fu­ner­al Home, Ari­ma, from 2 pm.

Ram­per­sad’s chil­dren, rang­ing in ages from 10-19, were mur­dered af­ter mid­night by gun­men who stormed their home. Youngest vic­tim, Faith, 10, was due to turn 11 next Sat­ur­day.

Five oth­er rel­a­tives, rang­ing in ages from 14 to 25, who were al­so in the La Re­treat Ex­ten­sion home at the time of the at­tack, were al­so wound­ed.

For Ram­per­sad and her spouse Shawn Pe­terkin, there is now on­ly their el­dest daugh­ter Shani­ka, who was among the wound­ed and re­mains hos­pi­talised with lung dam­age.

Ram­per­sad spoke af­ter she and Pe­terkin vis­it­ed Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who knows the fam­i­ly, yes­ter­day.

Beck­les, who was at the Unit­ed Na­tions when the at­tacks oc­curred, con­tact­ed the fam­i­ly, who are among her con­stituents.

Ram­per­sad re­called Beck­les pre­sent­ing the fam­i­ly with Christ­mas ham­pers be­fore.

Speak­ing on the sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day, Beck­les said, “Theirs is a squat­ting com­mu­ni­ty and this has been very painful for par­ents, the Gua­napo com­mu­ni­ty and by ex­ten­sion Ari­ma. As an MP, it has al­so been very, very painful for me.

“I’m at­tend­ing the fu­ner­al and lend­ing all the sup­port I can. I reached out to So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox, who’s al­so as­sist­ing in what­ev­er way pos­si­ble and I’ll con­tin­ue to keep in touch with them.”

TTPS de­tains one sus­pect

Ram­per­sad said that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice told them they had so far held one per­son in con­nec­tion with the mur­ders and is work­ing “hard and very fast”.

But in ad­di­tion to the pain of the chil­dren’s deaths, the fam­i­ly now has to grap­ple with fall­out.

Fore­most is Ram­per­sad’s anger and grief about so­cial me­dia claims about the shoot­ings.

She said, “Peo­ple say­ing all kinds of things, ‘we send them on the streets to make fares.’ Oh God, my chil­dren nev­er did any­thing wrong, no drink­ing, smok­ing or par­ty, no bac­cha­nal! My chil­dren didn’t de­serve that ... sleep­ing in their beds and they just come and kill them so. Why?

“Peo­ple talk­ing about the ‘sins of the fa­thers falling on chil­dren’ but I live good for my chil­dren...If we were do­ing wrong things, some­thing might have been ex­pect­ed but we weren’t do­ing any thing il­le­gal...I swear to God we were nev­er in any­thing with any­body.”

She added, “We work hard. The minute the fa­ther get pay, we make gro­ceries, get school things, pay bills. We nev­er study our­selves. What lit­tle we had was for the chil­dren. Peo­ple don’t know how hard we work. I lost my job dur­ing COVID, I used to tend bar and cook. For Christ­mas, I make pastelle and black cake and sell; we mind an­i­mals.”

The fam­i­ly, now home­less, is al­so seek­ing as­sis­tance. The blood from the mas­sacre stained the lo­ca­tion where Ram­per­sad, 39, had lived since she was 17. Even if blood­stains are re­moved, Ram­per­sad and Pe­terkin can­not face the house.

“It’s where my chil­dren were killed,” she mourned.

“We’re seek­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion, hop­ing for gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance.”

Twelve fam­i­lies have al­so moved out of the area since the mur­ders.

Ram­per­sad is al­so up­set about re­ports that one child’s body was blue and swollen due to de­com­po­si­tion, al­leged­ly due to cer­tain ini­tial freez­er con­di­tions.

“They ly­ing” she al­leged.

Ram­per­sad added, “Who­ev­er mur­dered my chil­dren, the po­lice should get them and hang them as they have no heart. My chil­dren died on the spot.

“Our life will nev­er be the same. It have no Christ­mas again; Shane’s birth­day was Au­gust 30, I was Au­gust 26, I can’t cel­e­brate birth­days ei­ther. Next Sat­ur­day is Faith birth­day...you know how we go­ing to be then?”