A 13-year-old girl and her un­cle were killed, while her fa­ther was crit­i­cal­ly wound­ed, dur­ing a bru­tal at­tack at their Rio Claro home yes­ter­day.

While a mo­tive is still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, po­lice con­firmed that teenag­er An­drea Lal­lan and her fa­ther Ed­dy Lal­lan were re­cent­ly threat­ened, af­ter the teenag­er al­leged she was raped by a cou­ple.

An­drea’s un­cle Syl­van, who was a para­plegic, re­cent­ly moved back in­to his broth­er’s home at Old Ma­yaro Road, Lib­er­tyville.

An­drea’s fa­ther was shot in the neck area but man­aged to make his way by a near­by neigh­bour’s home. The neigh­bour took him to the health cen­tre, where he was treat­ed and trans­ferred to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice be­lieve the fam­i­ly was asleep when the killer/s stormed the house.

Neigh­bours told Guardian Me­dia that around 2 am, they heard about nine gun­shots but did not ven­ture out of their homes.

When po­lice got to the home, they found An­drea’s body on a bed in her bed­room and the un­cle’s body on some cush­ions on the floor, where he slept. An­drea was a Stan­dard Four stu­dent at St Therese RC School in Rio Claro.

In a brief in­ter­view, the neigh­bour who took An­drea’s fa­ther to the hos­pi­tal re­called that he was on his bed when he heard some­one call­ing his name.

“When I look, I see Ed­dy was bleed­ing from the up­per body. He was ask­ing for help, ask­ing for wa­ter. He came for me to car­ry him in the health cen­tre. I jumped in the car. While we go­ing up the road, he said they shoot them (Ed­dy’s daugh­ter and broth­er) too. He was gasp­ing and bleed­ing plen­ty.”

While the mur­ders rocked the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty, neigh­bours de­clined to com­ment on the in­ci­dent. They said the Lal­lans kept to them­selves.

One of the res­i­dents said he last saw Ed­dy and his daugh­ter around 8 pm when the po­lice brought them home in a po­lice ve­hi­cle. She would have gone to the po­lice sta­tion in re­la­tion to her sex­u­al as­sault mat­ter.

Guardian Me­dia was told that Syl­van moved about in a wheel­chair af­ter a spinal in­jury fol­low­ing a fall about two years ago. An­oth­er res­i­dent claimed that he slept on the side of the road for a while, not far from his broth­er’s home. How­ev­er, he said Syl­van moved in with his broth­er less than a week ago. An­drea’s fa­ther worked as a labour­er but stopped work­ing af­ter an in­jury to his head. Rel­a­tives who turned up at the house yes­ter­day de­clined to speak with re­porters.

Sit­ting down in front of the house, Ed­dy’s sis­ter cried and prayed for strength. When re­porters at­tempt­ed to speak with her, she mut­tered, “I can’t deal with this right now.” How­ev­er, Rio Claro South coun­cil­lor David Law, who knew the fam­i­ly, said he was shocked and sad­dened over the in­ci­dent. He said the fam­i­ly was strug­gling, and Syl­van had re­cent­ly asked for his as­sis­tance for a new wheel­chair. He de­scribed An­drea as a bright young child filled with am­bi­tion.

Lament­ing the nu­mer­ous mur­ders in the coun­try, he said, “It is alarm­ing. We have had a few mur­ders in the re­gion in the last few weeks. But this is home, I am close with the fam­i­ly and very emo­tion­al ... We would see the crim­i­nal el­e­ments are be­ing more vi­cious and cal­lous. There is no age, no gen­der. Some how, we need to get a han­dle of this.”

He said the po­lice seem to be los­ing the bat­tle with crim­i­nals.

Mean­while, po­lice said An­drea’s moth­er Chris­tine Phillip, who lives in Ma­yaro, went to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre to iden­ti­fy the body yes­ter­day.

Po­lice re­trieved eight 9mm spent shells and a pro­jec­tile at the scene. Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Fol­low­ing the mur­ders, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray called on the au­thor­i­ties to end the surge of crimes in the coun­try.

Con­demn­ing the cold-blood­ed mur­ders, he said they il­lus­trat­ed the gloom and an­guish hov­er­ing over the coun­try.

Lament­ing that the mur­ders fol­low the re­cent quadru­ple mur­ders of a Gua­napo fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing a ten-year-old girl, and sev­er­al oth­er homi­cides, he said the tra­di­tion­al­ly qui­et Rio Claro com­mu­ni­ty had al­so re­cent­ly lost busi­ness­man Kris Ram­saran who was shot 16 times in St He­le­na.

He added that it was hor­ri­fy­ing that in the midst of such unchecked cat­a­stro­phe, there was still no pur­pose­ful in­ter­ven­tion from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his non-per­form­ing Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is in the throes of un­prece­dent­ed tor­ment and pain and cries out for lead­er­ship to bring an end to the crime scourge and to pro­vide com­fort to af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties and fam­i­lies. Dr (Kei­th) Row­ley should know that his si­lence and cold­ness are not what is re­quired dur­ing this pe­ri­od of his­toric na­tion­al tragedy,” he said.

CoP hopes for ear­ly break­through

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has con­demned the killings and ap­pealed to the pub­lic to as­sist the po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the CoP said while no clear mo­tive was con­firmed, the po­lice do not be­lieve it was an ar­bi­trary home in­va­sion. She added that the po­lice are work­ing on cer­tain leads they ex­pect will be very use­ful in solv­ing the in­ci­dent, and hope to make a break­through soon.

“We to­tal­ly con­demn this heinous, vi­o­lent act per­pe­trat­ed against an­oth­er one of our very in­no­cent chil­dren and call for an end to these sense­less killings,” she said, ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly.

She al­so ap­pealed to any mem­ber of the pub­lic who may have in­for­ma­tion to con­tact the po­lice through their var­i­ous medi­ums.

Mean­while, a TTPS state­ment yes­ter­day re­vealed that a cou­ple had ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly in the Rio Claro Mag­is­trates’ Court joint­ly charged with two counts of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a 13-year-old girl.

The re­port stat­ed that a 23-year-old woman, a house clean­er, and a 49-year-old man, a con­trac­tor, ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Ava Van­den­berg-Bai­ley.

It is al­leged that around 3.15 pm on Sep­tem­ber 15, the girl was asleep at the home of the man and his girl­friend when she was al­leged­ly awak­ened by them and sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed. The woman, was grant­ed $500,000 bail, while the man was de­nied bail. They were charged WPC Far­ri­er, of the Rio Claro Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID). They are ex­pect­ed to reap­pear on Oc­to­ber 27.

The re­port did not name the vic­tim in com­pli­ance with laws which dis­bar the nam­ing of vic­tims of sex­u­al crimes.