Man kills lover, self

A 55-year-old man, believing he had been infected with the HIV virus, yesterday shot and killed his 39-year-old lover then twice shot himself in the head.

Norman Durgadeen Paris, of Roy Joseph Scheme, San Fernando, shot his lover of two-and-a-half-years, Christine Knights, three times in the head and abdomen before taking his own life inside an agricultural shop in Rio Claro. According to witnesses, Knights was returning from the market when she was confronted by Paris. They had an argument and she returned to Roxanne’s Plaza where she owned a hair dressing salon. Yesterday was the only day Christine had gone to work this week because, her relatives said, “things were slow”. With Paris following, Knights reportedly went into the agri shop — Rio Claro Feed and Agro Supplies — located on the ground floor, and asked for a glass of water.

An employee of the plaza reported that Paris took out a piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to Knights, claiming it was an affidavit in which he swore that he had contracted the HIV virus, and that she was the only person he had been sexually active with for the past two-and-a-half-years. According to police the affidavit was prepared in January this year by a Commissioner of Affidavits. Just moments later, witnesses said, Paris pulled out a 9mm gun from his trouser pocket and fired three shots at Knights. She was hit in the head and abdomen. Immediately he turned the gun on himself and fired two shots into his head. A friend of Knights told Newsday that earlier yesterday Paris told her “your friend is a walking time bomb” but she didn’t know what to make of the comment then.

Knights, of Brothers Road, Tabaquite, was the mother of a seven-year-old boy with another man. At the family’s home last evening, her sister, Simonette Knights, recalled that Christine wanted to go out for carnival but was afraid because she (Christine) had been threatened. According to Simonette, her sister never said who had made the threat. Sitting inside their home, the family appeared to be in shock only just having heard of Christine’s murder. According to members of the family, none of them had any idea that Christine was seeing someone other than her son’s father. They recalled that Christine travelled to the United States on Ash Wednesday and when she returned she distributed presents to everyone saying: “Take everything now because you have nothing to get later in the year”. According to police investigators, Christine’s killer was a former foreman in the Community Preservation and Enhancement Programme, CEPEP.