Yvonne “Eve” Trum­pet-Nichol­son, 74, of Brook­lyn, New York, was last seen alive and well by her im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly at the JFK In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port min­utes be­fore her flight to T&T last Tues­day.

How­ev­er, what tran­spired af­ter her ar­rival at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port five hours lat­er re­mains a mys­tery.

Her de­com­pos­ing body was found on Mon­day at about 2 pm near the T&T De­fence Force’s base in Cu­mu­to.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian last evening out­side her lo­cal home at Mo­hammed Street, St Au­gus­tine, her daugh­ter made a tear­ful plea for an­swers, while Trum­pet-Nichol­son’s hus­band made it clear it is was yet to be de­ter­mined how his wife was killed as an au­top­sy was still pend­ing. Nei­ther rel­a­tive, who both flew in­to the coun­try want­ed their named used.

Trum­pet-Nichol­son had dual cit­i­zen­ship for the US and T&T, mi­grat­ed to the US in 1989 and had been back-and-forth since then. She was a pub­lic ser­vice re­tiree from the pub­lic ser­vice.

Trum­pet-Nichol­son’s daugh­ter, who is one of four chil­dren, said they tried to con­tact her when she was ex­pect­ed to clear Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms at Pi­ar­co last Tues­day.

“We tried over and over to call her but we got no re­sponse. We be­came wor­ried and my broth­er, my fa­ther and I all de­cid­ed to come to Trinidad our­selves to in­ves­ti­gate why she is not tak­ing our calls,” the woman’s daugh­ter said.

In the yard of the split-lev­el old-fash­ioned con­crete house there was a Toy­ota Corol­la, PCA 9051, parked just be­hind the mas­sive con­crete fence, which had a flat rear right tyre.

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers from Homi­cide Re­gion II, who were there at the house in­ter­view­ing Trum­pet-Nichol­son’s im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers, called in a wreck­er so the ve­hi­cle could be tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre for foren­sic analy­sis.

Asked who the car be­longed to, Trum­pet-Nichol­son’s daugh­ter said: “It is an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and we were told not to let too much in­for­ma­tion out. Right now we just want any­one who may have seen her at the air­port and no­ticed if any­one was with her or if she got in­to any par­tic­u­lar ve­hi­cle to call the homi­cide po­lice and let them know, please…It is what we are ask­ing for at this time…for help.”

She al­so not­ed “strange” in­for­ma­tion that ap­peared on an of­fi­cial re­lease is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

The re­lease stat­ed: “…Trum­pet-Nichol­son, of Mo­hammed Street, St Au­gus­tine, was last seen in St James at about 7 am on Wednes­day 14th No­vem­ber.”

It al­so added that a miss­ing per­son’s re­port was lodged the fol­low­ing day at the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion.

“Wher­ev­er that in­for­ma­tion came from that she was last seen in St James is def­i­nite­ly not true. That can­not be be­cause she nev­er an­swered our calls, nei­ther called us to tell us that she land­ed and she was al­right…which she usu­al­ly does,” Trum­pet-Nichol­son’s hus­band said.

Her son de­scribed her as an open, invit­ing and lov­ing per­son.

“She tru­ly gen­uine­ly cared for peo­ple. She would re­al­ly bend over back­wards to help peo­ple. She had four chil­dren but she raised tonnes of oth­er kids,” he said.

An in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, con­firmed Trum­pet-Nichol­son’s de­com­pos­ing body was found by hunters and added it ap­peared her throat was slit. The of­fi­cer said the in­ves­ti­ga­tions will now in­clude work­ing along with the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T and their se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel to re­trieve sur­veil­lance footage on the day she ar­rived in and around the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

“We can­not con­clude any­thing at this time. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is very sen­si­tive and we are look­ing at all an­gles and hop­ing that we get con­crete leads soon in the in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” the of­fi­cer said.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic who may have any in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing Trum­pet-Nichol­son are asked to con­tact of­fi­cers at the Homi­cide Re­gion II, the near­est po­lice sta­tion, 555, 999 or 800-TIPS.

In an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, homi­cide of­fi­cers were called to Up­per Pic­ton Road, East­ern Quar­ry, Laven­tille, yes­ter­day where an uniden­ti­fied man was fa­tal­ly shot around 5.45 pm.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to both in­ci­dents are con­tin­u­ing.