Senior Reporter
sascha.wilson@guardian.co.tt
Tenants of Building C in Orchid Gardens, Pleasantville, are traumatised after a woman from the area was murdered in their building.
Mother of two Chezerae Kidney-Ramdass, 39, of Apartment 13, was shot dead in her apartment around 3.40 pm on Wednesday by a man pretending to be a customer.
She operated a small parlour from her apartment on the ground floor and conducted sales through her bedroom window.
Customers would ring a bell to signal that they came to make a purchase. Her brother Jereme Kidney-Ramdass, 40, recalled that he was in his bedroom waiting to watch a football match when he heard someone by the window and the person asked for something.
“She asked her son to bring three soft drinks and I hear, pax, pax, pax and same time the rain buss down. I rolled off the bed and I see my nephew stoop down on the corridor.”
He asked him if he was okay and then went into his sister’s bedroom.
“I say ‘Chezerae gunshots’. Ah say ‘you okay’, I saw her foot, she is a red girl and I saw her foot black and I saw the curtain smoking from the bullet holes and I realised she was dead. She just turn black one time.” His nephew, who is 18 years old, was not injured but there were bullet holes in the bedroom wall.
Crime scene experts retrieved ten spent shells at the scene.
Puzzled as to why she was murdered, Kidney-Ramdass was hopeful that the police investigation would unearth who killed his sister and why.
“I not vex with nobody I just leave it in the hands of God,” he said. Kidney-Ramdass said his sister was not involved in any illegal activities and he was unaware of any threats to her life.
“She was a straightforward person. Don’t put up with no bull... She change her life. She stop drinking, she going to church. She bought a car and would drop and pick up her children from school. My sister was a favourite. She was loved.”
He said his sister also has a 16-year-old son but he stayed by his father. Her two sons will be writing the CSEC exam in a few months.
The brother added that her focus was ensuring that her children received a good education, did well and eventually move out of the building which is often referred to as the “ghetto.”
Lamenting that there were other murders in the building, he said they had asked HDC to relocate them but admitted that they first have to settle their financial status with HDC.
While investigations into the woman’s murder are ongoing by Homicide Bureau Region 3 detectives, they received preliminary information the shooting may have been drug-related. Guardian Media understands that the police recently conducted a State of Emergency search exercise in the area.
There were four other murders in the building in recent years.
