A LATE-NIGHT attack on a Penal family has left a man not only nursing a gunshot wound, but also a broken heart, after the intruders also shot and killed his son on March 24. In their haste to escape, the intruders drove over the man's son as he lay on the ground bleeding from gunshot wounds.
When Newsday arrived at the crime scene in Batchyia Trace, hours after the incident, Sheldon Harripersad was sitting on two concrete blocks which were perched on top of two old tyres in the garage. As he spoke on his cellphone, Harripersad began weeping, telling the caller he had lost his son and had no money for his funeral.
Harripersad showed Newsday his bandaged left hand saying he had just returned from the hospital where he was treated for a gunshot wound.
"Listen nah, I have no money for no funeral," he told the caller on his cellphone. After ending the call, he told Newsday, "My son dead and that real hurting meh." He said his son Brandon was 34 and the elder of his two children.
"Is one son that I have. One daughter too. That was my best friend, that fella. I teach him how to work. I teach him to work excavators, I teach him to work backhoe."
Harripersad said he and his son worked together for about eight years before Brandon got a job at a nearby hardware as a lorryman.
Harripersad said he provided for his family working as a labourer, adding that he recently spent all of his savings to enrol his 24-year-old daughter into a school to study accounting.
Relating the incident, Harripersad said he was asleep when he heard Brandon suddenly shouting for help sometime around 11 pm on March 24. On leaving his bedroom and entering the unlit garage, Harripersad said he was attacked by one of the assailants. Harripersad said he tried to fight the intruder but was shot in his hand.
"If I had a gun, police would have locked me up this morning because I would have shot them dead."
Police investigators later told Newsday that Harripersad's wife Karla – who was not at home when Newsday visited – was in the house when the incident took place.
Police sources said a relative, in a statement given to investigators, said Brandon was heard screaming out, "Allyuh, they come to kill meh." This was followed by gunshots outside the house.
After opening the front door to investigate, the relative told police that two masked men pushed their way into the house demanding money and jewellery.
The relative said the intruders demanded the keys to the family's car, a Mazda 3. Harripersad said he was ordered to open the front gate and that was when he saw his son lying on the ground "covered in blood."
He said that while the gunmen were not looking, he ran out into the road and into nearby bushes where he hid. The gunmen got into the car and in making their escape, they drove the vehicle over Brandon's body as he lay bleeding.
Harripersad said he was uncertain if his son was already dead when the gunmen drove the car over him. A report was made to police and the district medical officer later ordered Brandon's body removed
