Mother of murdered man: I was expecting it years ago

THE mother of Carlon Sooknanan, the man who was murdered in Valencia while having sex, said he failed to heed her warnings and she was expecting him to be murdered years ago.

Speaking with reporters at the Forensic Science Centre, St James on Monday, Jenelle Dominique said her first-born child, who is originally from Sea Wall Trace, Guayaguayare, was “hardened.”

“This young boy, he (was) just miserable. I am not the kind of mother who will put my head on a block and say he don’t know about this or that. He been in all kind of nonsense.

“I accept it because I was expecting it. I was expecting it a long time, a couple years now. It kind of hard, but I will get over it.”

Police reported that at about 10.20 pm on Saturday, 28-year-old Sooknanan was at Emon Lane, Valencia, with his 30-year-old girlfriend when three men shouted "Police! Police!"

Sooknanan, police said, was on a mattress on the floor when his killers forced themselves inside and shot him before running off. His girlfriend, who was unharmed, ran to his relatives and called for help.

Dominique said she lost another son, who was also involved in criminality – mainly the drug trade between Trinidad and Venezuela – four years ago and since then she spoke to Sooknanan to change his ways.

In 2019 her 19-year-old son Anthony George was abducted at sea and has not been seen since. He and two others were snatched by Venezuelan pirates, only one man survived after he and another man jumped overboard and swam to safety. The survivor, Keyon Alexander, said he swam to an oil rig off the coast of Erin and got a ride on a passing fishing boat.

“I used to tell him ‘I have no money to bury yuh. Somebody will bullet you down. Behave yuhself.’ I been telling him that for the longest while. He listen now though!”

She described Sooknanan as a quiet child who was very sly. Dominique said her son had land in the area and was planning to construct a home there. The house in which he was killed was an abandoned house which once belonged to a friend.

“My message to mothers is don’t let your children rule you. Make sure and talk to them, and if they don’t listen it have a place for them at the end of the day. Don’t lie for your children.”

Her concern was Sooknanan’s lifestyle coming home to affect his remaining siblings.

The mother of nine, five boys and four girls, said she did not want criminals shooting up her home looking for her son, and an innocent sibling gets killed. She said she advised him not to stay with them because of the life he lived.