4 dead in 3 violent weekend incidents

The country woke up on Monday morning to the news that three violent and unrelated incidents had taken place on Sunday which left four people including two men and two women dead.

In one case a Petit Valley woman was stabbed at her home during a quarrel on Sunday evening, while in another a Valencia farmer was stabbed repeatedly and left in a drain where he eventually bled to death. (See stories below)

In the third incident, residents of Paltoo Road in Todd's Road, Chaguanas were left dazed with the news that a woman had been murdered by her estranged husband who later took his own life in their community.

Police said Amar Zoongie’s body was found in some bushes at about 6.30 am on Monday by a passer-by. When an alarm was raised at Zoongie's home, relatives there made the gruesome discovery of his estranged wife Ann Marie Diaz's body in a room. Her head, police said, was bashed in and her throat slit.

When Newsday visited the 47-year-old mother of seven's home, relatives said although she and Zoongie had separated for the past 12 years, they lived in the same house but in separate sections.

Diaz's brother Sebastian Diaz said news of her murder was surprising to him although he admitted that Zoongie had threatened to kill her in the past.

¨They lived for about 16 years together, then things got different just after the only child they had together was born. She told him to move out. That was about 12 years ago. They have a 14-year-old together," Diaz said.

"Amar was always telling people that he would do it (murder Ann Marie). He told me too and I told him to leave the woman alone.¨He left (when they first separated), to build a house right next to me. Up until last Saturday, he said he was going to build the house, and I told him that was the right thing, and to go ahead with your life." Sebastian said there had been no indication that Zoongie was going to take his sister's life "Even up to yesterday (Sunday) he said he would do it. But we hearing this years now so we didn't take he on.¨

Diaz said he believes it was after Ann Marie went to sleep around midnight on Sunday that Zoongie killed her. "I didn't watch the body, but the police said that her throat was slit and she was hit on the head several times."

The police told Ann Marie's relatives that a bottle of poison found next to Zoongie's body, led them (investigators) to believe that after he killed the woman, Zoongie left the house and drank the poison, falling and dying where he was later found.

Diaz said a man who had came early Monday morning to meet Zoongie, was the one who discovered his body in the bushes. He then raised an alarm at Zoongie's home which is about 200 feet away and this led to other relatives finding Ann Marie's body.

"So when we saw that he was dead, that was when one of her sons went to check on her and found her lying on her stomach. That was about half past six this morning," Diaz told Newsday. Ann Marie was the mother of four boys and three girls.

"They tell you to report domestic violence but if a man have it in his heart to do something like that, how are you going to stop that?¨Sebastian said there had been incidents of violence, but his sister never reported them to police.

Although the couple had separated, they went on living in the same house, but occupied separate bedrooms. Struggling to hold back the tears, one of Diaz's daughters, Alicia Samuel, spoke about her mother.

¨She told him that he has to move on because she had moved on and was seeing someone else. He (Zoongie) knew about the other person.

"I can't say what made him do it, but all how she told him to leave here, like he not going anywhere. My mother was a real darling. She had a soft heart." Both bodies were later removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James for autopsies. Investigations are ongoing.