MASSACRE

They will also pray for the man’s wife and surviving daughter, who are in critical but stable condition at San Fernando General Hospital, as well as for a fourth child who was unharmed and is safe.

Prayers will be said as well for the killer, who police shot dead.

Residents could hardly believe the horror of the massacre at Ackbar Trace, Old Siparia Road, Fyzabad, on Thursday night, when Sylvan Alladin, stabbed to death Berrico “Bull” Subhan, 46, his daughter Sheriffa, 14, and son Musaf, four.

Alladin also attacked his cousin Rasheeda, 30, the wife of Subhan, and nine-year-old Laila, another of the couple’s daughters who was stabbed about her legs. Their second son, Salim, six, was unharmed.

The brother and sister were rescued by two police officers who had to break down a door to a room Alladin had locked himself in with them, and, with a sniper’s expertise, shot and killed Alladin without any bullet hitting the children.

Before his murderous spree, Alladin left a bizarre voice message on another female relative’s phone, claiming he had been sexually assaulted as a boy and could no longer live with the memories. Any connection between Alladin’s disclosure and his killings is unclear.

According to a female relative, Alladin, an excavator operator of Cuchawan Trace, Debe had gone to Rasheeda’s home and asked if he could stay there for the night.

“Sylvan (Alladin) come asking Rasheeda for a room to sleep and they gave him a room,” the woman said.

However, Alladin had an eight-inch knife hidden on him which he used to attack Subhan when he entered the house. Rasheeda, hearing her husband’s screams, rushed into the room where the two men were. Alladin slashed her throat, but she managed to run out of the house, collapsing in the road.

Subhan, a cattle farmer, also made an attempt to escape but he did not survive, as Alladin stabbed him repeatedly about his chest, back, neck and sides.

Alladin also tied up little Musaf, in a bedroom, and stabbed him in the heart. The boy died, as did his sister Sheriffa, who had multiple stab wounds.

Alladin then held Laila and Salim hostage, while neighbours helped their mother who was found on the road outside the house of neighbour Doodnath Mayrhoo, the councillor for Siparia West/Fyzabad.

Another neighbour, Michael Chattergoon, who works at San Fernando General Hospital as an orderly, went to the aid of Rasheeda, and performed first aid on the bleeding woman while waiting for an EHS ambulance to arrive.

By this time, an alarm was raised and the police were alerted. They found Subhan dead in the yard.

Firefighters had to be called in to help cut through burglar proof to get into the house which Alladin had locked as he held Laila and Salim captive.

Once inside, two officers, Cpl Russell Bahadoor and PC Keon Smith, used a sledgehammer to break down the door to enter the bedroom where Alladin held the children.

The officers called on Alladin to drop the knife when they came face to face with him as he held Laila on his lap and had Salim gagged and bound standing next to them.

Instead of dropping the weapon, police said, Alladin turned the knife on Laila stabbing her several times in her legs.

Fearful for the children’s lives, the officers opened fire on Alladin, who collapsed and died on the bed. The children rushed into the arms of the officers and were immediately taken to the hospital for medical attention.

“We had to save those children. He held the children hostage and it was as if he was waiting for us to come in,” said an officer. A senior officer described the triple murders and the shooting death of the killer as the bloodiest crime scene he had ever been on.

“In all my years as a police officer this is the most gruesome scene I ever witnessed. It was like a butcher’s market, blood all over the place. Blood on the door, blood in the yard, blood everywhere. To see those injuries brought tears to my eyes. In my view it was the work of a serial killer, it is just astonishing, it was just too much,” the investigator said.

Chattergoon, the neighbour who helped Rasheeda, is now being hailed as a hero. He had been watching television when he got a call alerting him to what was taking place outside.

“She was bleeding profusely from the left side of the neck. I put pressure on the wound by using a towel to try the stop the bleeding,” he said.

Chattergoon said at times he felt he may “have lost her” as she kept slipping in and out of consciousness.

“She was opening and closing her eyes and I kept talking to her, she told me the man had killed her husband. She kept asking for the children, I begged her to stay with me,” he said. The ordeal, he said, lasted about 50 minutes as the ambulance arrived late.

The deaths in the holy month of Ramadan has sent shock waves through the close-knit community. Subhan and his family were practicing Muslims and like many were fasting.

“The family was looking forward to Eid and had even asked me to come across to help Rasheeda cook for the big celebrations,” a family friend lamented.

Alladin’s relatives yesterday expressed shock over what he had done. The relatives played a recording of Alladin disclosing he had been sexually abused as a child.

“If he had told us we would have helped him. He should not have kept those emotions bottled up in him for so many years,” a relative said.

A crying woman said she knew Alladin had a “hard life” and “bounced around” from house to house after his mother died when he was just four-years-old.”

“He lived with his grandparents who also died and it became worse as he was out of a home,” the relative said. The relative claimed Alladin told someone of his deadly intentions.

“Someone should have told us something, it could have been different today,” the relative said expressing condolences to the family of Alladin’s innocent victims.

The scene was visited by Snr Supt Lewis, ASP Pardassie, Insp Granger and officers of the Fyzabad and Penal Police Stations.

Investigations are continuing.