Venezuelan woman awaits DNA results to confirm son's death

A Venezuelan woman believed to be the mother of one of two men killed in St James on Tuesday is reluctant to accept her son has died.

The bodies were burnt beyond recognition.

Two men and one woman were killed in an apparent attack at a house in Freedom Place, Upper Dibe Road, Long Circular.

Residents reported hearing gunshots and saw smoke coming from one of the windows at around 2.30 am.

Fire officers extinguished the blaze and saw the burnt bodies of the three in the living room.

Police said they found several spent shells at the house.

Speaking with Newsday via WhatsApp on Friday, Rosemary Cabello said until a DNA test was done on the charred remains of a man believed to be her son, she could not confirm he had died at the house.

But she confirmed that her 19-year-old son, Luis Santiago David Figuera, lived there.

"Until I verify that one of the remains that was left there is that of my son, I cannot consider him dead," she said.

Cabello said her son lived at the house with her brother-in-law Celso Andrade, 35, and a 32-year-old woman, Flor Leal García.

She said a the owner of the house, a Trinidadian, also owned a car wash business in Woodbrook, where her son worked. She found out what had happened when the landlord visited her at her Woodbrook home and told her.

"The owner lived there in that same house, but that night he did not sleep there. That's the only thing we know."

Santiago, Andrade and his mother came to Trinidad 19 months ago, from Cumana, Sucre state, Venezuela.

Celso had worked at a supermarket in downtown Port of Spain for over a year.

She said both men had lived at the Dibe house since August 2019.

"Where I lived, they didn't accept men in the residence, and that's why they went to live in that place apart from me," she said.

She also said Santiago had a Venezuelan girlfriend, who left for Venezuela the day before the incident. But she lived in Chaguanas.

Andrade had two children, who are in Venezuela with his wife, Cabello's sister.

"My son had no problems with anyone," she said. "His friends were very fond of him because he was a good boy. In Venezuela he finished high school and was waiting for the call to enter the academy of the Bolivarian National Guard of Venezuela, which shows he was a focused and responsible boy."

Cabello said that to cremate the remains of each body the family needed $8,000, though she had not yet visited a funeral home to verify this.

"It would be two bodies. It is a lot for what we earn here, so we need help,"

Cabello said she is thinking of sending the remains to Venezuela or taking them herself.

"I'm practically alone here. I'm thinking about whether I should go back to my country. For now I need to think."

Newsday understands officials from the Venezuelan Embassy are expected to visit the Forensic Science Centre, St James, on Monday.

Officials at the centre said when foreigners die in this country, the embassy of their country usually helps with the cost of the funeral and providing paperwork necessary for post-mortems.

Additional reporting by Shane Superville