Penal double homicide not first tragedy for family

The person of interest in the murders of a Penal woman and her 12 -year-old son has been released from custody.

Homicide Bureau Region III investigators released him on Sunday afternoon without any charges.

Abeo Cudjoe, 31, and her son Levi Lewis were attacked at the family's home at Latchoos Road in Penal after 1 am on Tuesday. The front door was broken in.

The next day, accompanied by his attorneys, the man, 35, surrendered to police at the San Fernando station. Cudjoe had repeatedly accused him of abusing her and had a restraining order against him.

She died in the house after being chopped and stabbed.

Her son was stabbed in the neck but walked for about ten minutes to alert his grandfather, Phillip Harewood, 62, at Penal Rock Road. Levi later died in hospital. He was a student of St Dominic's RC School in Penal.

Cudjoe's other child, a three-year-old boy, was asleep at home and was not harmed.

Autopsies are set for tentatively for Monday at the Forensic Sciences Centre in St James.

The double murders are not the first tragedy in the family.

About six years ago, Cudjoe's uncle Paul Chester was gunned down at his home at Beckles Street. Someone called out and knocked on the fish vendor's door. When he looked outside, the gunman shot him dead. No one has been arrested.

In April last year, Chester's son-in-law, labourer Joel De Coteau, 39, also of Beckles Street, Penal, was shot dead outside his home. The father of five had gone outside to throw out the garbage when he was shot.

Chester's brother-in-law Jason "Feto" John, 39, was killed about nine years ago. A gunman shot him while he was sitting under a tree with his young daughter near his home at Sunrees Road in Penal. He was a state witness to the murder of Penal labourer Michael Jacob, also known as Michael Ramsaran, who was shot dead at Beckles Street.

Over a decade ago, a female relative was shot and killed at her home in Penal. A man was charged with the crime and is in prison.