I was terrified

“I was terrified,” a former warehouse attendant for murdered businessman Dr Eddie Koury testified yestereday as she told of him being stabbed by four men at his offices at Macoya Industrial Estate on September 21, 2005.

Although Myrtle Mc Innis did not see the men’s faces, as they all wore masks, or who actually stabbed her boss, she said she saw blood on the ground where Koury was kneeling, surrounded by the men.

McInnis said she was hiding behind a desk at the time.

Koury, the managing director of ISKO Enterprises Ltd, an import and distribution company, was abducted from his office on September 21, 2005. Two days later, his headless corpse was found in central Trinidad. His head has never been found.

McInnis said she got to work just before 8 am that morning. She saw Koury’s car and another white car parked in front of the building.There were two men in the white car and two seated outside. She said she could not identify them nor had she ever seen them before. She said she climbed the staircase to the office and Koury opened the door for her.

She also said she heard footsteps behind her and after she entered the office, she heard someone knock on the door and ask if they sold computer software. She heard Koury tell them no and then the door was flung open.

“I ducked down behind a computer,” she said, then said she peeked out from her hiding place and saw Koury on his knees. McInnis pointed out several of the areas from photographs taken by police which have been previously tendered into evidence.

She described one of the men as scruffy-looking, with a big eye, and this man saw her in her hiding place. Asked who she was, she said she told him she worked there and had a child to care for. McInnis said the man told to shut her mouth.

“He had a knife in his hand,” she added.

Admitting at this point she was terrified, Mc Innis said from where she hid, she could could see the three other men standing over Koury, asking him, “Where the money?”

The men also asked for the key to the storeroom and Koury told them where it was, she said.

“They started to tell him he was lying. ‘Yuh lying, yuh lying.’ That’s when they start stabbing him. I did not see who was doing the stabbing…I peeped and saw blood on the ground. The four of them were around him. I started to pray and pray,” Mc Innis said.

She said she cried out and was told by the scruffy man to “Hush yuh mouth," and then she saw blood on the knife.

On trial in the Port of Spain High Court are Shawn James, Caleb Donaldson, Jerome Murray, Terry Moore and Robert Franklyn. Justice Malcolm Holdip is presiding.