Se­cu­ri­ty guard Matthew James, 27, a fa­ther of two, was last seen at his place of work col­lect­ing food or­ders from his col­leagues as he was about to go on a food run overnight on Sat­ur­day. He was nev­er seen since.

How­ev­er, his par­tial­ly burnt body was found in a booth that is cur­rent­ly un­der con­struc­tion at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, in Port-of-Spain, near Chancery Lane on Sun­day morn­ing.

James’ body was dis­cov­ered by a se­cu­ri­ty guard em­ployed by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion at about 8.15 am. James lived at San­ta Cruz.

His car, a beige Toy­ota Yaris PBZ 6832, was be­lieved to have been stolen and was in­volved in a hit-and-run ac­ci­dent on Sun­day night.

An au­top­sy re­port re­vealed that James died from mul­ti­ple stab wounds to the neck.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, James’ un­cle, Nigel Ri­vas said his wife is six months preg­nant and be­cause he was not work­ing and his sec­ond child on the way, he de­cid­ed to ap­ply to the se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny.

Ri­vas said his nephew was on­ly em­ployed with Shield Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Lim­it­ed three weeks ago and was last seen at about 3 am on Sun­day.

Ri­vas said up­on en­quiries from James’ col­leagues, he was on­ly told that James was on the 6 pm to 6 am shift and was about to leave the Al­bion Plaza En­er­gy Cen­tre, Vic­to­ria Av­enue to go and pur­chase food, “I was told that he had al­ready col­lect­ed monies from his co-work­ers and told what to get them. How­ev­er, when we asked if some­one went with him we were told that they couldn’t say any­thing more on it.”

“We find it strange but what we al­so find strange is that why wasn’t the fam­i­ly con­tact­ed when Matthew nev­er re­turned to his job af­ter every­one knew that he was go­ing to buy food and come back? Was there any­one to check in on the guards who are on du­ty to make sure they are ok? They nev­er called any fam­i­ly mem­ber to find out why he aban­doned his post. Noth­ing, he went miss­ing for how­ev­er long and no­body con­tact­ed the fam­i­ly.” Ri­vas added.

Ri­vas is al­so call­ing on the po­lice for swift jus­tice and to view CCTV footage that he and the rest of the fam­i­ly strong­ly be­lieves will as­sist in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions, “It has CCTV cam­eras all over the place…look at it, I am sure they will see what hap­pened to Matthew that morn­ing and who went with him and where he was killed and who took his car. They must find some­thing.”

Si­mon So­bri­an, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Shield Se­cu­ri­ty, in ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to James’ fam­i­ly, con­firmed that James be­gan work­ing at the com­pa­ny three weeks ago and de­scribed him as a “Re­spect­ful young man with no blem­ish­es on his record since his em­ploy­ment.”

So­bri­an, how­ev­er, could not com­ment fur­ther as he said it was an “ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

James is the sec­ond se­cu­ri­ty guard at the com­pa­ny, who was iron­i­cal­ly as­signed to Al­bion Plaza and on du­ty when he was killed.

In April 2018, a state wit­ness, Paul Ra­j­coomar, 41, was shot mul­ti­ple times about his head and body. He suc­cumbed to his in­juries hours af­ter while un­der­go­ing emer­gency treat­ment at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Ra­j­coomar, who was at the time stand­ing on the road near Al­bion Plaza, was ap­proached by a ve­hi­cle. Its oc­cu­pant got out and shot him sev­er­al times. The gun­man es­caped.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.