RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A young woman who ex­celled aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly and grad­u­at­ed with dis­tinc­tion from St Stephen's Col­lege af­ter earn­ing 16 CSEC and CAPE sub­jects was found dead on Fri­day, hours af­ter vis­it­ing her boyfriend at an apart­ment in Pe­nal.

Giselle Ougrah, 23, and Stephon Kan­don, 26, were dis­cov­ered dead at an apart­ment along Sun­dars­ingh Trace. In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve the deaths re­sult­ed from a mur­der-sui­cide.

Ougrah, af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as "Pre­cious," had left her home to vis­it Kan­don, with whom she had re­port­ed­ly been in a re­la­tion­ship for about a year.

Ac­cord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary re­ports, Ougrah sus­tained mul­ti­ple stab wounds. Her body was found on a mat­tress in­side the apart­ment. Kan­don was found hang­ing near­by.

Po­lice sus­pect Kan­don used a rope cut from a ham­mock on the prop­er­ty to take his own life af­ter al­leged­ly killing Ougrah.

Rel­a­tives said they had re­peat­ed­ly warned Ougrah about the re­la­tion­ship and en­cour­aged her to end it, de­scrib­ing it as trou­bled and volatile.

Con­cern grew when fam­i­ly mem­bers were un­able to con­tact her by phone. Af­ter re­peat­ed unan­swered calls, Ougrah's broth­er-in-law went to the apart­ment, where the bod­ies were dis­cov­ered.

Po­lice were no­ti­fied and re­spond­ed to the scene.

De­spite her aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments, Ougrah worked as a hair­dress­er at a pop­u­lar bar­ber­shop on Mar­ket Street in Princes Town.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the deaths are on­go­ing.

Guardian Me­dia will pro­vide fur­ther up­dates as ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able.