Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

In a heart­break­ing farewell for 30-year-old nurse O’delle Lal­man-Bap­tiste—who was kid­napped and mur­dered—rel­a­tives and friends re­mem­bered her as a lov­ing and gen­er­ous per­son dur­ing her fu­ner­al ser­vice.

A heart­felt let­ter penned by her rel­a­tive Su­san Sama­roo-Caezar on be­half of her griev­ing fam­i­ly, friends, and neigh­bours was read dur­ing her eu­lo­gy at St Joseph Ro­man Catholic Church in Bonasse Vil­lage, Ce­dros.

Sama­roo-Caezar read, “We would like to say sor­ry, sor­ry for the way life was tak­en away from you. Sor­ry, we were not there to help you. It shat­ters our hearts be­cause you did not think twice to help some­one or did what was nec­es­sary to save some­one else’s life.” She said they were “all in shock and sick to our stom­achs” by the way she died.

Shar­ing a mem­o­ry from Lal­man-Bap­tiste’s on­ly sib­ling, Miguel, she said, “He re­mem­bers hit­ting you with a cur­tain rod and could not stand to see blood come out of you. Much more to have to iden­ti­fy your body at the side of the road.”

De­scrib­ing Lal­man-Bap­tiste’s three-year-old son as her heart­beat, Sama­roo-Caezar added, “The worst is hav­ing to look at your son when he says, ‘I am wait­ing for Mum­my.’”

Re­call­ing her sac­ri­fices on the jour­ney to be­come a nurse, Sama­roo-Caezar said she loved help­ing peo­ple. “Odie, you def­i­nite­ly shone your light. Even your for­mer pa­tients showed up for your vig­il,” she said.

Al­though they still don’t un­der­stand what hap­pened, Sama­roo-Caezar said they would leave it in the hands of God. She lament­ed that Lal­man-Bap­tiste’s mur­der re­flects a loss of val­ue for hu­man life. “Men’s hearts have in­deed gone cold, and there is no longer a fear of God.”

Lal­man-Bap­tiste’s col­leagues and her fa­ther-in-law, An­tho­ny Bap­tiste, al­so paid trib­ute to her. Fa­ther Alphonse Man­dani, who of­fi­ci­at­ed at the ser­vice, de­scribed her as hav­ing “a beau­ti­ful soul of an an­gel of God”.

Lal­man-Bap­tiste was kid­napped on April 18 by two sus­pects af­ter her hus­band, Math­ias Bap­tiste, stopped to uri­nate along Hos­pi­tal Road, Carlsen Field. A high-speed po­lice chase fol­lowed, end­ing with of­fi­cers fa­tal­ly shoot­ing one sus­pect. Hours lat­er, her body was dis­cov­ered in Carlsen Field with a gun­shot wound to the head.

The sec­ond sus­pect re­mains at large, as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her trag­ic death con­tin­ues.