Sascha Wil­son

Less than a month af­ter Te­nile Cu­pid re­turned to her moth­er’s home af­ter end­ing an in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ship, she was found mur­dered.

Cu­pid’s nude body was dis­cov­ered at a WASA well site in a field road in San­ta Flo­ra on Tues­day. There was a wound to her head.

Cu­pid, 23, a Cepep work­er and moth­er of two chil­dren aged four and eight, end­ed the re­la­tion­ship about three weeks ago. On Tues­day night, the man vis­it­ed her moth­er’s Fyz­abad home. She left with him around 10.20 pm to get some­thing to eat but she nev­er re­turned home, po­lice said.

Cu­pid’s moth­er Nathalie Mon­zano re­port­ed her miss­ing to the po­lice the fol­low­ing morn­ing. Lat­er that day, around 3.10 pm, a WASA em­ploy­ee dis­cov­ered her body at Well#8 Syn­cline Road, San­ta Flo­ra.

As rel­a­tives tried to come to terms with her death yes­ter­day, they said they had heard she was be­ing abused but not­ed she nev­er con­fid­ed in them.

A hurt Clarence Cupid, grandfather of Tenile Cupid, recalls his last moments with her at his Fyzabad home on Wednesday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Her aunt Kizziann Cu­pid said, “We heard that they were in a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence con­stant­ly, so she will leave and come home, leave and go back, leave and come home un­til this time I think she did not de­cide to go back.”

How­ev­er, she said her niece al­ways had a smile on her face.

“We nev­er saw no bruis­es on her...she al­ways smil­ing. Whether Te­nile in stress or not, she eye red, even if she look like she cry­ing you would not know be­cause she al­ways smil­ing. She al­ways tried to hide it with a smile so un­less she open up and tell you, you would not re­al­ly know what go­ing on with her.”

De­scrib­ing her niece as a jol­ly, free-spir­it­ed help­ful per­son, Kizziann ad­vised vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence to speak out.

“So do not stay in a re­la­tion­ship where abuse is go­ing on, whether ver­bal­ly, phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly.”

The WASA well site where Tenile Cupid’s body was found on Tuesday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Whether it’s a church or a friend, she ap­pealed to them to get help. She al­so ad­vised men to walk away and not bring grief and sor­row to fam­i­lies.

Re­call­ing the re­cent killing of Resh­ma Kan­chan al­leged­ly, who was al­so alledged to be a vic­tim of abuse, she said, “It sad.” She said on Tues­day she heard Cu­pid was miss­ing and then the po­lice in­formed them that a body was found and asked them to come down to con­firm whether it was her niece.

“We did not get to see the body but we saw on the phone. The po­lice show us on the phone it was her. Wound­ed, beat up, re­al sad but it re­al.”

Lament­ing the preva­lence of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in the coun­try, Cu­pid’s grand­fa­ther Clarence, 73, said men should not be abus­ing women.

“It is not a good thing for men to be beat­ing women. I know that is not a good thing for sure. I have a wife for 33 years, I nev­er hit her a day. This is re­al sad thing that hap­pen­ing here. Not on­ly here, all over the place.”

He had a mes­sage to men.

Tenile Cupid

“Keep your hands at their hands. Don’t hit peo­ple chil­dren. I sure most of them have moth­er and sis­ter and they would not like to see their moth­er and sis­ter in that kind of po­si­tion.”

Ex­tend­ing their con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, vil­lagers de­scribed Cu­pid as a very nice per­son who did not de­serve to die in such a man­ner.

Po­lice are look­ing for the man to as­sist them with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. An au­top­sy is card­ed for Fri­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain.