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A love story's bloody end in Paradise T&T

He was a lonely widower who craved companionship.

She lived alone.

The couple had known each other as children, having lived in the same community all their lives.

And as the years passed, Balkaran Dookie would stop by the woman’s home on his daily walks for a friendly chat.

Dookie, a pensioner, and Dolly Sooknanan, ten years his senior, would spend hours talking about everything – from their grandchildren to politics.

In 2013, the couple moved in together at Sooknanan’s home at Spring Trace, Quarry Village, Siparia.

And they shared a love which was accepted and respected by their relatives and neighbours.

“It was more like a companionship. The both of them were lonely and would enjoy each other’s company. I would pass by and see them sitting on the front porch, sometimes taking a drink. My father was happy and so was the woman who we called mammy,” his son, Mukesh Dookie, said.

Dookie was stabbed to death in the living room of his new home in May 2015. He was 76.

Dolly Sooknanan was stabbed six times, but survived.

No one heard the screams of the elderly couple that night but everyone heard their silence.

The front door was opened and the couple had not been seen since the night before.

AN Arouca man was shot and killed on Monday night by bullets which had “TTPS” markings the abbreviation for the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.

This discovery was made one day after police officers retrieved ammunition in the same area which were also issued to the TTPS.

The victim was identified as Garvey Campo, 38, of River Road, Windy Hill, Arouca.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say en­quiries in­to the dou­ble-mur­der of ma­rine work­ers Os­wald Al­leyne and Mark Stephen sug­gests that the lat­ter was the killers’ tar­get.

This be­lief was al­so shared by a few of the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives and friends fol­low­ing the shoot­ing near Stephen’s Val­ley Lane, Princes Town home on Tues­day.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, it was around 4.20 am af­ter Al­leyne, 63, of Watts Road, New Grant had just picked up Stephen, 41, at his home to go to work.

Al­leyne, a div­ing su­per­vi­sor and Stephens, a sea­man, both worked for a Ch­aguara­mas-based ma­rine com­pa­ny and was head­ing to the Her­itage ma­rine base in Point Fortin to work.

CCTV footage showed a white car pulling up along King Street, a short dis­tance away from the cor­ner of Val­ley Lane. A man wear­ing a cap ex­it­ed the pas­sen­ger’s door and calm­ly walked to Val­ley Lane. As Al­leyne re­versed his pick­up on­to King Street, the gun­man shot him sev­er­al times through the dri­ver’s side win­dow. Al­leyne at­tempt­ed to open the door, but could not es­cape. The gun­man then shot Stephen sev­er­al times be­fore sprint­ing to the get­away car.

Eight days af­ter her son was shot dead near his San­gre Grande home, Ann Marie Stephen says she is now be­ing tar­get­ed by gang mem­bers in her com­mu­ni­ty and is ap­peal­ing to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith for im­me­di­ate pro­tec­tion.

Stephen, 53, a moth­er of eight, said she had re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion. She came to Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day seek­ing help.

The threat came days af­ter her 23-year-old son Kei­th Clement, a co­conut ven­dor, was killed on De­cem­ber 27.

Stephen said Kei­th was her third child to have died un­der trag­ic cir­cum­stances. Her daugh­ter, Mar­i­on Clarke, 16, died in an ac­ci­dent in To­ba­go a few years ago and in 2017, her 34-year-old son Bren­don Stephen was shot dead.

She de­nied Clement was in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty al­though she ad­mit­ted he smoked mar­i­jua­na and was fre­quent­ly on the block.

“I am ap­peal­ing to Grif­fith to in­ves­ti­gate Kei­th’s death, please. I need jus­tice for my son’s mur­der. I am not go­ing to rest un­til I see his killers get pun­ished. I want Grif­fith to clean up Damarie Hill and put away these gang mem­bers who have the place un­safe,” she said.

Stephen said her son was a vic­tim of an on­go­ing war in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“It’s war­fare from long time. My big son, Bren­don, and them used to be in war,” she said.