Dad of murdered teen still searching for answers

THREE days after his son Romel Cudjoe was murdered, Jimmy Cudjoe says he still is unclear over the circumstances and motive for his son's killing. Cudjoe, 19, was shot dead along Duncan Street in Port of Spain on Friday night.

Speaking Monday at the Forensic Science Centre in St James, Cudjoe said he saw his son on Friday night before the youngster left the family's Valencia home. Cudjoe said that before his son left, he warned him about the dangers of venturing into Port of Spain after dark.

He said his son recently converted to Islam and left home with a friend who his son identified as his "Muslim brother" to visit a girl they met recently at Duncan Street.

Cudjoe said he doubts this was the reason for the murder as was suggested by others who were close to his son. "Up to now, nobody is giving me a good, straightforward story as to what happened to him.

"How can you just decide to go and look for a girl on Duncan Street, knowing all that is going on with crime? You know the tension going on between 'Rastas' and 'Muslims' (two warring criminal gangs) yet you were willing to venture there," Cudjoe said.

While he will remember his son as a loving, helpful person, Cudjoe urged other youths to listen to their parents and take their advice seriously. "Right now my brain isn't functioning properly. He (Romel) was my eyeball. Look what they did to my eyeball. I had to go into Forensics and see my son with a hole in his head.

"The only advice I can give to the youths is to listen to your parents because if my son had listened to me none of this would have happened. I told him to be careful going around those areas he doesn't know about. He was from Valencia, he doesn't know anything about town." Cudjoe said his son's murder came as a surprise to him as he did not know him to be involved in crime.

Up to press time, no arrest was made and no motive established by police for Cudjoe's murder.