Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The sound of screams and cry­ing filled the air at the Shore­lands res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ty in Glen­coe yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, af­ter rel­a­tives ar­rived at the scene of the mur­ders of Cal­i­da Scham­ber, 43, and her 66-year-old moth­er Carmeli­ta DeLeon.

At the same time, po­lice from var­i­ous op­er­a­tional units were search­ing sev­er­al forest­ed ar­eas in and around Ari­ma for the man be­lieved to have com­mit­ted the heinous acts, who is al­so a sol­dier.

Af­ter a na­tion­wide man­hunt, po­lice ar­rest­ed the sus­pect along the Blan­chisseuse Road in Ari­ma at 8.35 pm.

Po­lice said the at­tack hap­pened just af­ter 11 am, when the man, who was known to Scham­ber, jumped the wall of the premis­es and shot both women be­fore es­cap­ing.

Rel­a­tives who were in the house at the time heard the gun­shots and on check­ing found the bod­ies of the moth­er and daugh­ter ly­ing in pools of blood.

Scham­ber’s tod­dler son, who was al­so in the house at the time and was re­port­ed­ly be­ing fed by his grand­moth­er mo­ments be­fore the at­tack, was un­harmed.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the sus­pect, who is a war­rant of­fi­cer II as­signed to Camp Cu­mu­to, went to his work­place where he got a Ford Ranger and sped out of the com­pound.

The ve­hi­cle, po­lice said, was lat­er left aban­doned at the Quar­ry in Blan­chisseuse.

At the scene of the mur­der, of­fi­cers from the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion were called in to­geth­er with a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer, who de­clared Scham­ber and DeLeon dead.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene, griev­ing rel­a­tives did not speak with re­porters while crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors were col­lect­ing ev­i­dence.

Cu­ri­ous passers-by slowed their cars briefly to catch a glimpse of the long line of po­lice cars along the dri­ve­way out­side the gates of the Shore­lands com­mu­ni­ty.

For­mer Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Anil Roberts, who is al­so a close friend of Scham­ber and her moth­er, was al­so on the scene. He said his ex-wife is cur­rent­ly in a re­la­tion­ship with one of Scham­ber’s rel­a­tives.

Roberts said his daugh­ter was in the house at the time of the shoot­ing, not­ing that he learned of the in­ci­dent as it un­fold­ed in the back­ground to a phone call with his daugh­ter.

“I heard scream­ing, shout­ing, pan­ick­ing and I could not get an idea of what was tak­ing place. I live near­by, about 11 min­utes away. I jumped in my car, called the po­lice while com­ing here,” Roberts said,

“It is a very sad sit­u­a­tion, a lit­tle ba­by maybe a year old, who is the child of Cal­i­da, and the gen­tle­man, who is on the run, was there in the ba­by chair, his granny was feed­ing him when the fel­la came in and com­mit­ted this heinous act.”

Roberts said the in­ci­dent was the re­sult of a bit­ter sep­a­ra­tion be­tween Scham­ber and the sus­pect and claimed the sus­pect made threats to Scham­ber, which led to po­lice re­ports be­ing filed and a re­strain­ing or­der be­ing sought for her pro­tec­tion. He said one of the most re­cent con­fronta­tions hap­pened on New Year’s Day when the man vis­it­ed the home, lead­ing to an ex­change.

“Up to New Year’s Sat­ur­day, he tried to come in the yard and one of the broth­ers had to deal with him and so on, the po­lice were con­tact­ed but some­how the sys­tem al­lows this to hap­pen. It’s very sad, women need pro­tec­tion,” he said.

Roberts said the mur­ders of Scham­ber and DeLeon high­light­ed the need for more proac­tive and strength­ened po­lice re­spons­es to in­ci­dents of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and threats to women. He lament­ed that such in­ci­dents of­ten did not prompt se­ri­ous po­lice in­ter­ven­tion un­til there was blood­shed.

“It is clear some­thing has to be done be­cause re­strain­ing or­ders are not work­ing, re­ports are not work­ing,” Roberts said.

“This fel­la is in the army, the army should have had a re­port about this be­cause how could he get a firearm when he is in an emo­tion­al state where he re­quires psy­cho­log­i­cal help.”

Roberts said he coached Scham­ber and her broth­ers in swim­ming and main­tained close con­tact with them over the years.

While at the scene, rel­a­tives were seen con­sol­ing each oth­er while hold­ing and cud­dling the tod­dler boy who was in the house at the time of the shoot­ing.

Scham­ber’s el­dest daugh­ter, who was still in her school uni­form, was brought the house and lost her com­po­sure af­ter be­ing es­cort­ed in­side by rel­a­tives and po­lice. Her cry­ing and screams were heard from some dis­tance away.

Among the po­lice of­fi­cers vis­it­ing the scene was ACP North-West Win­ston Ma­haraj, who said they had launched a na­tion­wide search for the killer.

“The po­lice has a sig­nif­i­cant amount of in­for­ma­tion at this time as it re­lates to a sus­pect and a man­hunt is on, we are ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing this in­ves­ti­ga­tion. An ar­rest is im­mi­nent,” Ma­haraj said.

“We have en­gaged all our ser­vices, in­clu­sive of our Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit, to pro­vide that kind of sup­port to the fam­i­ly.”

The mur­ders of Scham­ber and DeLeon brought the mur­der toll to five for 2024 com­pared to three for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.