Senior Reporter
Shayana Ruiz was ambushed and stabbed in the back, face, chest and hand during a deadly attack after she went to collect an outstanding debt of $4,500 from her former boyfriend on Wednesday.
Caught by surprise after allegedly being stabbed by the man’s current girlfriend as they were arguing, relatives who witnessed the incident unfold were horrified as they watched the suspect plunging the knife into Ruiz’s body several times.
Ruiz, 25, of Quarry Road, Diego Martin, had gone to the Edinburgh South, Chaguanas home of her former boyfriend around 5.30 pm on Sunday to collect the cash, which she had loaned him before their separation in December 2025.
Her relatives said Ruiz, an employee at Little Caesar’s, Ariapita Avenue, Woodbrook, had been asked to collect the money.
It was alleged that during a heated argument between Ruiz and the man, the suspect inserted herself in the confrontation and later allegedly stabbed Ruiz multiple times before she and the man fled.
The two suspects have since been apprehended.
Ruiz’s relative, who had accompanied her to the man’s house, along with their driver, rushed the bleeding woman to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, where she died ten minutes after arrival.
Ruiz’s father, Kelvin Ruiz, yesterday described his lone daughter as “the type of person who would make everybody happy.”
“She was a very loving person,” he said.
“If you angry or not, she going to make yuh smile. She will brighten up a room just by walking in. All her friends right now in a mess because of the type of person she was.”
He added, “She was making everybody happy, but who making she happy now?”
Recalling the relaxed and fun-filled moments she had shared with him and her younger brother as they cooked together several days ago, he said the pain of having to bury a child had once again resurfaced.
Revealing his 25-year-old son Onassis was gunned down whilst driving PH in Picton, Laventille, eight years ago, Ruiz said he is now dreading that number, as his remaining child and last son is only 22.
The fisherman said he checked on his children before leaving home on Wednesday morning, and had been unreachable for most of the day until his return in the evening, where he learned of what had happened.
Informed by his stepdaughter that Ruiz had been attacked and died at hospital, he said, “Since that, the only thing I doing is waiting for them to tell me to come down in the morgue and collect the body to start funeral arrangements.”
Indicating the family was standing with him yet again, he lamented, “It come like a repeat for me. I went through that already. Ain’t no way no parent could prepare for something like that first time, far less for the second time.
“This is one pain that doh go way. Yuh does live with this pain and sometime yuh won’t be thinking bout it, but yuh go down the road and see something to remind yuh and it all come back.”
The elder Ruiz said words of comfort could never erase the pain that had remained from the death of his first child, and had now been re-ignited with his daughter’s murder.
Asked if he was familiar with Ruiz’s former partner, he became emotional as he said, “I feel real hurt because when he come here, I show he love. Me ain’t show he no hate or nothing.”
Ruiz said his daughter had secured a $10,000 loan to construct a room for herself last year, but ended up lending her boyfriend $4,500.
He said the female suspect should not have become embroiled in the matter.
“You kill somebody for a man that you didn’t even know how that money thing come about? That real unfair. In my book, if you borrow something, regardless of if yuh done or not, pay it back. Borrow is borrow, take is take. She never give yuh it, she lend it to yuh.”
Claiming he himself had reached out to Ruiz’s ex-boyfriend and appealed to him to repay the money, Ruiz said when his daughter began receiving hateful and disgusting text messages from the man, he advised her to walk away.
Ruiz said while he could foretell something was going to happen, he wasn’t expecting such an outcome.
“I was expecting they had a dispute, they quarrel, that. But I didn’t expect murder and somebody would kill my child … that unfair to me, for $4,500. That real hurting me.”
He begged parents to continue talking to their children, as he stressed this current generation was different from that of his.
“In we time, we mighta cuff it out and go we way. But this generation, they doh want to hear that. They going to kill yuh. To all the parents, talk to yuh children, doh stop.”
