A 19-year-old man who had been freed of two robberies earlier this year and was turning his life around was one of two men killed between Monday night and yesterday morning.
According to police, around 2.45 am yesterday a neighbour of Richard Ramkissoon saw a man running away from Ramkissoon’s apartment at Dow Village, Couva. When the neighbour checked he found Ramkissoon with stab wounds to his neck and chest.
Speaking with journalists outside the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, relatives of Ramkissoon said he was to celebrate his 20th birthday next week and had been fighting to clear his name of a robbery charge for the past three years.
The relatives said Ramkissoon was due to write CXC when he was arrested and when he was freed on the charge they sought to have him enrolled in classes. The teen, they said, was a helpful young man who had been depressed after his father died of a cocaine overdose.
“He has five brothers and he is always looking for something to be able to support them. He always used to go out of his way to get something for his brothers. His mother was single and he acted like a father figure. So he was always looking for a dollar somewhere. We don’t know if he cross paths with somebody, but he is the kind of boy that would be the first to apologise,” the women said.
His mother Kathy-Ann Ramkissoon said, “He was the kind of person that always wanted to see the little family disputes settled and he was waiting to see the family come closer together. It is so sad that this is what brought us back together, and that he would not be here to see it. I went through real struggles with my child. When he was a baby we didn’t have nowhere to go. We used to have to sleep in the savannah and on the road. We would have to eat bread and water. And now they take my child and gone with him.”
In the second incident, Mikhail Patron, 20, of Nelson Street was killed at John John, Laventille. Police reports stated that residents heard explosions around 7.30 pm at Block 8, Laventille.
When they checked they found Patron dead. Police said Patron, a Muslim, was killed in “Muslim territory” and they believed the killing might be the result of an “internal war”.
Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, Patron’s mother, Cordelia, said she was informed of her son’s untimely death by a child who knocked on her door on Monday night.
The news she said was confirmed by neighbours who said they heard of the killing through social networking site Facebook.