KILLED FOR HIS CAR

Christopher Tynsdale, 36, spent the last six months working as hard as he can to pay installments for a white Nissan Tiida that he bought from a car dealership. He worked extra hours as a PH taxi driver and sacrificed so that he could make up his TT$1200 weekly installment. But in the blink of an eye on Friday afternoon, his car and his life were taken by unknown gunmen who, it is believed, stole his car as part of a car-jacking ring.

Relatives identified the body of the El Dorado man at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

At about 4.30 pm last Friday, gunshots were heard at Cornelius Drive, Tunapuna. Police officers arrived on the scene and found the bullet-riddled body of a man that would later be identified as Tynsdale, lying at the side of the road.

Investigators that canvassed the area while the crime scene was being processed, got information that a white Nissan Tiida was seen leaving the scene at the time the gunshots were heard.

Meanwhile, relatives of Tynsdale, who last saw him on Friday morning, were beginning to get worried, as they had not heard from him. Family members spent the weekend trying to get into contact with him, but every time they called his phone, it went straight to voice mail.

“It was fishy that he was not answering his phone all weekend. He would usually get someone’s phone borrowed and call if he does not have money on his.” said one relative who did not wish to be named. “So we called the owners of the car and asked them to turn on the GPS and find out where the car is.”

The GPS system tracked the car to Tunapuna, near a secondary school. Relatives thought that it was a strange place for the car to be, since he does not normally venture into that area.

“He doesn’t like the area and he doesn’t know there well, so for him to be there, someone would have had to have taken him there. I thought to myself he would not reach Tunapuna and not call home. So we asked the owners of the car to shut it down.”

By the time they were given permission to activate the kill switch on the vehicle the car had left Tunapuna and gone to a chop-shop nearby.

Relatives went to the police to make a missing person’s report, pictures of the GPS locations, and moments after police received a call that two masked men were seen abandoning and setting fire to a white Nissan Tiida, close to where GPS tracking first picked up the car.

“They took out the steering, bonnet, seats trunk, engine parts, cut out the chassis and burned it.” a relative said.

Police soon made the connection between the shooting incident, and the discovery of the burning vehicle. Relatives were later called and told to come to Forensics, so they could identify his body.

Tynsdale was described by relatives as a “cool fella”.

It was yesterday confirmed that Tynsdale died from multiple gunshot wounds after an autopsy was performed at Forensics.

Homicide detectives are now continuing investigations into the matter.

**Headline*