While police have not classified the death of Penal gardener Cyril Joseph as a homicide, his daughter Christine says someone set three trap guns in his garden with the intention of killing him.
Joseph, 52, of Seeballack Trace, died immediately on Monday after being shot in the chest by a trap gun while he and two of his children, Savannah, 14, and Christian, 12, went to pick bananas at their garden off Julien Branch Trace, Penal.
According to Christine, three hands of bananas were strategically placed on the ground to conceal the guns. She said the killer set the guns near a drain where they knew her father had to cross and aimed high enough so it would have hit him above his leg.
She said there could have been further disaster as her brother and sister could have been shot in their heads because they were much shorter than their father. Although she was unsure who wanted her father dead, she recalled that a man used to threaten him over the land his garden was on and had even destroyed his crops several years ago.
Recalling the incident at their home yesterday, Savannah said despite being afraid that gunmen were lurking in the bushes, she and her brother were not prepared to leave their father to fend for himself. On finding his body slumped in a drain, she said, she shook him vigorously in hopes that he would get up.
“We went to dig out fig plants and spray pumpkin and while crossing a drain he said he forgot his luchette. We told him we would bring it and he walked ahead while we were still putting our boots on. When he reached by a drain, we heard a loud explosion and first thing I did was ask my brother what sounded so.
“When we looked down the hill, I saw my father lying in a drain. I scream out ‘daddy’ hard, dropped everything and ran down the hill and tried to wake him up but he was not getting up,” Savannah said.
She said she called her mother Elizabeth Rangoo, 37, and her uncle Martin Joseph. Rangoo’s mother Samdaye Rangoo said when they got the news, they called the Emergency 999 hotline several times but got no response. They then drove to the Barrackpore Police Station and were accompanied to the scene by ag Insp Mohammed and Cpl Nanan.
Samdaye said Joseph had seven children between the ages of four and 19 and was expecting another. She said none of them attended school following an argument between Joseph and a school official. She said several attempts to re-enrol them in school were rejected by a school official. KF