Fyzabad taxi driver stabbed to death

POLICE are baffled over the cold-blooded killing of Fyzabad taxi driver, Roland Marshall. Marshall, 58, was found in a teak field off the Fyzabad road yesterday with 12 stab wounds to his body. His car was hijacked Thursday afternoon while plying the San Fernando/Fyzabad route. On Thursday night, police told Marshall’s common-law wife Rookmin Seelochan and their son Michael, 18, they suspected Marshall was involved in a vehicular accident.  Police had found his blue Datsun 280C car abandoned in a ditch along Samaan Drive, Otaheite, on the road to Fyzabad.  However, Marshall was hijacked and killed, police said yesterday, presumably while making his last Fyzabad/San Fernando trip.

Police said the car trunk had blood stains, which prompted a frantic search by police for the taxi driver which continued into the wee hours of yesterday morning. Using tracker dogs, police discovered Marshall’s body around 10 am yesterday in a teak field at Samaan Drive, a short distance from where the car was found. Marshall was wearing the same clothes he left home with to ply his taxi, but police are stumped by the fact that the killer/s left Marshall’s money and jewelry on his body. Police believe the gruesome killing occurred after Marshall was hijacked when he had reached the lonely Otaheite Main Road.The killer/s repeatedly stabbed Marshall, police said, then placed  his body in the trunk of his car.

Investigators said the killers then dumped Marshall’s body 15 feet off Samaan Drive, and attempted to escape with the taxi, but they crashed into a ditch. When Newsday visited Marshall’s wife around mid-morning yesterday, she had not yet been told the tragic news. With tear-filled eyes, son Michael, believing the hijackers were holding his father captive, told Newsday, “Please let my father go. He is sickly. He is the only father I have. Please give him something to eat.” Marshall’s body was removed to the Forensic Sciences Centre, where an autopsy is expected on Monday. Visiting the scene was a party of officers from the Siparia CID, Oropouche and Fyzabad stations, headed by Snr Supt Nimrod Felix.