2 women murdered

Renuka Maharaj, 18, met her death first, at about 8.30 pm, when a woman lured her into bushes and stabbed her.

The Lakshmi Girls’ graduate was at her D’Abadie home when the woman stopped by. She asked Maharaj to accompany her to a nearby shop.

Police reported that Maharaj walked to the back of her house with the woman who led her into the bushes, stabbing her several times.

Maharaj’s screams brought her alarmed relatives to her aid. As they took the bleeding teenager into a nearby washroom, Maharaj’s relatives failed to realise her attacker stood by, looking on.

However, Maharaj whispered the name of her killer three times before she collapsed and died. When police arrived, they detained a 24-year-old woman in connection with Maharaj’s killing.

Maharaj’s mother was too distraught to be interviewed yesterday and Newsday was told the woman suffered from high blood pressure and had to be treated by an Arima doctor yesterday.

A relative said the teenager was a kind, loving and God-fearing person and did not understand when she was killed.

However, police sources said a woman had accused Maharaj of befriending the father of her child, triggering off an intense jealousy.

And in South Trinidad, police mounted a search yesterday for three men who shot dead Lisa Ragoobar, a 26-year-old mother of three, outside her Gasparillo home. That incident took place at about 11.45 pm.

Ragoobar died after the gunmen fired two shots, one of which struck her in the shoulder. Homicide detectives said Ragoobar was sitting in a grey Nissan Almeera with her boyfriend John Henry, who lives in St James, outside her home at Harmony Hall when they saw three men approaching.

Henry got out of the car and struggled with one of the men who attacked him with a knife. Henry managed to shove his assailant off. But as Henry ran to Ragoobar’s house for help, two gunshots rang out. Henry turned around to see the men running away from the car.

Henry ran back to the car to find Ragoobar slumped over the seat. He called out to her relatives, told them what had happened, and went with her to the San Fernando General Hospital. Ragoobar was pronounced dead on arrival.