A businessman who was attacked one month ago but survived was not so lucky the second time yesterday.
Police said Raul Joseph, 42, was killed one month and a day after a knife-wielding home invader took his wife’s life and left him paralysed. According to police, around 3 am yesterday a man entered through a window and stabbed and chopped Joseph, who lay on an adjustable bed at his Moya Trace, Upper Haig Street, Carenage, home.
Police said the man entered the house, killed Joseph and left without taking anything or harming the victim’s mother, who was close by. The same thing happened on August 18 when a man entered the home around 2.10 am, attacked both Joseph and his wife, Andrea “Hannah” Edwards, who died at the scene, and left without injuring their teenaged daughter who was home at the time. In both cases, a man in dark clothing was seen fleeing.
Police initially weighed the possibility that Edwards and Joseph attacked each other after they had an argument, but they are now reconsidering the idea following his murder. What has stumped officers is the ease with which the killer/killers entered and left the house, which they described as heavily “fortified” and with surveillance cameras. Joseph was a party boat owner while his wife was a cook.
According to his autopsy, Joseph bled to death having suffered stab and chop injuries to the liver and lungs. He was stabbed at least 14 times and offered little resistance to his attacker, as he was paralysed from the waist down and could not move his right arm. The injuries sustained were described as “abnormal” for a knife or cutlass by pathologist Dr Valery Alexandrov.
In an unrelated matter, the unidentified body of a man found at Sawmill Avenue, San Juan, last Tuesday was yesterday identified as Garvin Lawrence of Nelson Street, Port-of-Spain. Lawrence’s body was discovered after residents reported hearing gunshots and later found him dead.