A series of home invasions occurred in Longdenville early yesterday morning.
Among the victims was a 44-year-old resident of Raghunanan Road. The woman, speaking to the Express yesterday, asked to go unnamed as she fears for her life.
She shared that during the ordeal, which lasted 45 minutes, she was terrorised by three masked, armed criminals, who appeared to be in their early 20s.
At the time of the incident, she was home alone, when around 2.30 a.m., she was alerted to a noise outside, and on checking her camera system, noticed that the cameras were all out of their usual positions.
“I found that something was strange and then I saw somebody walking on the side of the house, and I tried to make a 999 call. I was barely able to get the address out before they burst into the bedroom and into the bathroom, where I was, and took away the phone and threw it in the toilet,” she said.
She added the three men were armed with guns, which she believed to be pistols, and were “dressed like construction workers”, wearing ski masks, long-sleeved T-shirts, and boots.
“They were asking for money, gold, and a safe, which I don’t have. There was a quantity of cash that I had in the wallet, and they took the cash and they started to ransack everything,” she continued.
One of the men ordered another to take her into another room and tie her up. Using a cord cut from a fan at her home, she said her hands were bound, and she was made to lie face-down.
Scared for her life, she said she was able to wiggle out of the hold, and attempted to run out the front door, when she was caught by the perpetrators.
“They took me back to another room, put me face-down again and tied back my hands and this time my feet, and had me face down while they ransacked the whole house,” she continued.
Every room in her home, including her kitchen and her fridge, was ransacked, she said. However, the incident took a disturbing turn, when the criminals began asking about her neighbours.
“They started to ask me about the neighbours; if anybody lives there, who is living there, how many people and where they are working. I suspect that because they didn’t get much from me, because I don’t store valuables at home, that they wanted to break in somewhere else,” she added.
At multiple times, her life was threatened.
“They kept saying they would shoot me if I didn’t tell them the truth about who is living next door, and where the safe with the money and gold was; that if I lied to them, they would come back and kill me. And they kept telling me not to make any noise,” she recalled.
She said the criminals were scared off by a security patrol from the company she employs to safeguard her home.
“They saw the lights and I heard them say that the security people were in front, so they left. When they saw the lights, they got scared and ran off through the back, and when I didn’t hear them anymore, after a little while, I wiggled out of the cord and untied my feet and came out, and I peeped and saw the security people,” she continued.
She said the police later told her the incident was one of three home invasions overnight within the area, with the incidents all believed to be conducted by the same group.
One of the incidents, she was informed, had occurred in a gated community and was conducted by six masked, armed men.
Checks on her premises indicated the criminals jumped the back wall of her home.
She said they broke the burglar proofing on a window at the side of her home, where one of the three fit through the opening, and later opened the back door for the other two.
Crime in a ‘ridiculous’ state
Asked about the state of crime in the country, she said: “It is ridiculous. I never thought something like this would happen to me because I take all precautions. All the doors were locked—these doors are difficult to open. I have an alarm system. I have burglar proof. I don’t know what else to do. My privacy was invaded.”
She called for harsher penalties for criminals and for greater vigilance from the police. Following the traumatic incident, she said she was also considering how she could safeguard herself.
“I’m even considering whether it’s time to get a firearm; but that’s not me. I can’t see myself killing somebody, but then, at one point, I thought they were going to kill me if they didn’t get anything because they were upset that I had nothing valuable,” she said.
She continued: “I see why the Government would have recently passed the home invasion laws, because it is innocent people being attacked. This is a pure home invasion looking to rob people and terrorise them.
“I really don’t know what else I could do. Sometimes, I consider migrating because I used to think I’m safe, but I don’t think I could ever feel safe again.”
Over the past month, there have been reports of home invasions across Central Trinidad, with instances being reported in Chaguanas, Cunupia, and Freeport.
