A lit­tle over a week af­ter Cal­i­da Scham­ber and her moth­er Carmeli­ta De Leon were gunned down at their Point Cumana, home, a 48-year-old sol­dier was charged with their mur­ders.

Scham­ber, 43 and De Leon, 66, were at their Shore­lands, Glen­coe home last Tues­day, when they were shot and killed.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion I vis­it­ed the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard yes­ter­day, where they pre­sent­ed ev­i­dence and re­ceived in­struc­tions to charge Tes­son Brad­shaw with the mur­ders of both women.

Brad­shaw was al­so charged with two counts of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

Brad­shaw was ar­rest­ed in a forest­ed area off the Blan­chisseuse Road, Ari­ma, hours af­ter the mur­ders of Scham­ber and De Leon.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the gun used to com­mit the mur­ders was not a per­son­al­ly is­sued weapon ob­tained via a Firearms Users Li­cense (FUL) but a mil­i­tary-is­sued gun.

In a voice note sent to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, head of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Snr Supt Rishi Singh, re­spond­ed to con­cerns from the pub­lic over the lengthy time tak­en to in­ves­ti­gate the mur­ders and lay charges, not­ing that suf­fi­cient time was need­ed to gath­er ev­i­dence to en­sure the case was strong.

“The po­lice notes the con­cerns of cit­i­zens about the time­li­ness of this mat­ter. We wish to point out that the court of pub­lic opin­ion has far low­er stan­dards than the ju­di­cial courts of Trinidad and To­ba­go. In this re­gard the po­lice re­mains com­mit­ted to the high­est of in­ves­tiga­tive stan­dards which is geared to­wards pro­duc­ing ev­i­dence to the high­est stan­dards which would ad­vance pros­e­cu­tions,” he said.

Singh added that he could not an­swer ques­tions about the de­tails of Brad­shaw’s bail con­di­tions, or if he was un­der any su­per­vi­sion while work­ing in the reg­i­ment.

Brad­shaw is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate to­day to an­swer the charges.

Mean­while, a me­dia re­lease from the T&T Fam­i­ly Law As­so­ci­a­tion yes­ter­day called on the au­thor­i­ties to do their part in en­sur­ing that peo­ple ac­cused of com­mit­ting acts of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence were re­strict­ed from hav­ing ac­cess to guns, even if they are mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

The as­so­ci­a­tion raised con­cern over the mur­ders of the moth­er and daugh­ter, not­ing that de­spite breach­ing a pro­tec­tion or­der, the sus­pect was not or­dered to sur­ren­der his firearm, as is nec­es­sary un­der Sec­tion Six of the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so sug­gest­ed that the sur­ren­der of one’s firearm should be a pre-req­ui­site to hav­ing ac­cess to bail in cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

They al­so said a risk as­sess­ment of the sus­pect in­volved could have pre­vent­ed the loss of lives of both moth­er and daugh­ter.

“It is the con­sid­ered opin­ion of the TTFLA that any risk as­sess­ment of the for­mer do­mes­tic part­ner of the vic­tim in the re­cent­ly pub­lished dou­ble mur­der would have shown that he was like­ly to breach any Pro­tec­tion Or­der made against him.

“Fur­ther the TTFLA ques­tions the ex­is­tence and ef­fi­ca­cy of the Na­tion­al Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Reg­is­ter in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 21 of the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act.

“Has this Reg­is­ter been up­dat­ed and ac­cess pro­vid­ed to all po­lice of­fi­cers so that they may in­form the ju­di­cial of­fi­cers at the hear­ing?”

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so sug­gest­ed that any mem­ber of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices ac­cused of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence should be di­rect­ed to a se­nior of­fi­cer by the court and a re­quest made to pre­vent the per­son from hav­ing ac­cess to weapons while on the job.

Both Scham­ber and De Leon were cre­mat­ed af­ter a fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Church of the Na­tiv­i­ty, Crys­tal Stream, Diego Mar­tin, on Tues­day.

Dur­ing the fu­ner­al, Hugh Scham­ber, fa­ther of Cal­i­da and hus­band of Carmeli­ta, said the fam­i­ly was still sad­dened and an­gry in the af­ter­math of their mur­ders.