Bleeding from a gaping wound on his neck following a brutal chopping attack against him and his mother, Abeo Cudjoe, yesterday morning, a 12-year-old boy ran to his grandfather’s house for help.
Unfortunately, Levi Lewis died at the Siparia Health Centre while his mother’s bloody body was discovered on the floor of their Lachoos Road, Penal home.
A 35-year-old soldier, who police described as ‘a person of interest’, was being sought by police last evening.
Cudjoe, 30, a pig farmer, was at home with Levi and her other child, a three-year-old boy, when they were attacked. Fortunately, the three-year-old was not injured and was found asleep in a room.
The front door was broken, police said.
Levi was chopped once in his neck while his mother had multiple chops on her arms and chest.
Cudjoe was married to her last son’s father but he moved out of the house last week.
Police confirmed Cudjoe made several domestic violence reports against a 35-year-old male relative.
After her hand was broken in an alleged domestic dispute, she applied for a protection order on April 25, which was subsequently granted by the court.
Two days before, Cudjoe had reached out to a domestic violence support group on Facebook explaining her situation and seeking advice.
Sitting under a tree near a basketball court within sight of his daughter’s home yesterday, Phillip Harewood struggled to come to terms with the murders of his relatives.
“It real sad, real dread. It hurt, it hurt to know a grandson and a daughter one time,” he said.
Police officers at the scene where Abeo Cudjoe and her son Levi lewis were murdered at their Lachoos Road, Penal home yesterday.
RISHI RAGOONATH
Harewood recalled that sometime before 2 am, his grandson showed up at his house soaked in blood and in shock. He lives about a quarter-mile away from his daughter’s home.
“The man (Levi) can’t cry, the man in shock, only blood...real blood. He start to vomit too, only blood he vomiting, real blood he vomit,” he recounted.
Harewood said his daughter was having domestic problems.
“They have a restraining order against him and Thursday he break the order by coming and take she phone and they end up in a fight. She gone and get ah next order to go back to the court,” he explained.
Harewood said Cudjoe asked him to change the locks on her doors but when he got there on Monday night she was not home. Before he left that night, he spoke to her and warned her to be careful.
Overcome with grief over the brutal murder of the eldest of his four children, Levi’s father Neil Lewis said his son, a student of Penal RC Primary School, recently wrote the Secondary Entrance Examination and was awaiting results. He wanted to go to Presentation College in San Fernando.
Lewis said his son was a skilful footballer, intelligent, kind and loving. He added that Lewis would assist his (Neil) mother around the yard and with his siblings.
The father said when a friend broke the news to him, he felt like he wanted to die as well. Hoping that Levi could still hear him, he said, “To my son, I love you, I love you Levi.”
Lewis recalled that he dropped his son (Levi) at his mother’s home on Sunday after he spent about a month at his home.
“I hug him up right there on the court, this morning I hear this thing,” he said.
Neil Lewis father of Levi Lewis, left, and Phillip Harewood father of Abeo Cudjoe, right, at the scene of the murder at Lachoos Road, Penal, yesterday.
RISHI RAGOONATH
Noting the crime situation in the country, Lewis said, “No protection for ladies, no protection for children. I can’t blame the Government. People have to be real out here. People have to be needing more God in their life.”
He said everyone, including leaders, pastors, the media and radio personalities, must be more responsible and “know what they doing and promoting.”
This is the third death in his family as last October, his brother, Dillon Andrews, was fatally shot in Couva and a month later his father suffered a stroke and died.
