Sister identifies murdered brother

THE body of a man found with two gunshot wounds to the head in Preysal on Sunday evening, was identified as Tyrone Mandeville, 53, of John Trace, Crown Trace, Enterprise, Chaguanas, after his sister heard a news report that a body had been found. Mandeville’s corpse was found around 5 pm on Sunday by a passerby at the side of a road in Choro Hill, Preysal. Police believe he was shot and killed elsewhere and his body dumped at Choro Hill.

Investigations led by Inspector Peter Burke and Sgt Sylvester of the Freeport police station discovered that Mandeville, a former football coach for the Crown Trace Youth Football Club, who was presently the vice-president and a trustee of Phase 4 Nationals, Edinburgh 500, Chaguanas was hijacked by gunmen  sometime after 8 pm on Saturday night while working his car for private-hire along the Chaguanas/Enterprise/Longdenville taxi route. Mandeville’s new car, a navy Blue B15 Nissan Sentra, which was bought by his sister, was discovered crashed near the Shore of Peace cremation site in Mosquito Creek, San Fernando.

The wreck, alleged to have been driven by Mandeville’s killers, reportedly remained at the scene throughout Sunday and Monday because police of both the Oropouche and San Fernando Police Stations were expecting each other to conduct an enquiry into the car crash. Speaking to Newsday yesterday, younger sister of the murdered man, Vasilla La Borde, 47, blamed the police for negligence saying if they had taken up investigations into the car crash they would have had a better lead as to who were her brother’s killers. The grieving woman said when her brother finished working the car, he normally went to his other sister’s home in Tunapuna to eat. But when the time passed and Mandeville failed to show up at either sister’s home, La Borde said she grew worried and started to make checks for her brother. When she heard a news report of the discovery of a body which was unidentified and the report also stated the body was that of a Rastafarian, La Borde telephone Freeport police and subsequently made her way to the mortuary where her worst nightmare was realised — the body was that of her brother.

Mandeville’s neighbour who  gave his name only as Anthony, recalled his last meeting with the victim: “On Saturday around 11.45 am, myself, Tyrone and one of his sons David went to spend the day at Chaguaramas beach. After that we came home and when Tyrone dropped me off, that was the last time I saw him alive,” Anthony said. Mandeville, formerly employed with the Port Authority in Port-of-Spain for 24 years, had three sons — Marvin, 24, Sylvester, 23 and David, 20. La Borde said she felt her brother knew his killers since he was not in the habit of picking up passengers he did not know. “If someone strange got into the car, Tyrone would not move until that person left...he only drove  people whom he was familiar with,” La Borde said.

“I hope and pray to God that the police find his killers and justice be done because my brother was a no nonsense kind of guy;  he was a bit of a loud mouth, meaning he would quarrel a lot but only for the right reasons. I know he was not the type to get mixed up in negativity,” she added. Mandeville’s body was taken to the Forensic Sciences Centre where an autopsy revealed death was due to shock and haemorrhage consistent with gunshot wounds to the head. La Borde said during the autopsy the pathologist discovered a bullet lodged in the jawbone, and had difficulty removing it. Up to late yesterday no arrests had been made and investigations were continuing.