Angella Ragoonanansingh went to collect the $150,000 she was owed by a businessman. Instead, he killed her with a bullet to the chest.
By Richard CharanRagoonanansingh, a licensed moneylender, died in the arms of her son, Devon Dhalai, who had gone with her to a store to recover the cash, owed since last December.
Dhalai witnessed his mother's shooting.
Two female workers at the store near the corner of Pointe-a-Pierre Road and High Street, San Fernando, said they heard the shot and fled.
The killer, police said, was a young businessman who was once a multi-millionaire now tormented by mounting debts.
He shot the woman with his licensed handgun investigators said.
Death came at 9 a.m.
He was still holding the gun, waiting at the door to his store when police arrived at the scene and held him.
Guard and Emergency Branch (GEB) and Crime Suppression Unit (CSU) officers cordoned off Pointe-a-Pierre Road, as policemen with tracker dogs arrived along with E-999 and San Fernando City Corporation police officers.
The shooting happened in a small store which is part of a building housing a Royal Castle outlet.
The eatery and two other stores were closed and shoppers asked to leave the area.
Across the street from the death scene, customers at the Pizza Boys outlet pulled chairs up to the windows and ate their burgers while looking at the body being carted away.
A man who said he was walking near the store when the shooting started said: "I ran inside and see the woman on the ground and her son bawling 'look the man just shoot my mother.'"
Ragoonanansingh's daughter, Kavita Dhanai, was allowed to leave school and came screaming for her.
Police said that Ragoonanansingh had gone to the store several times last week warning a man that he had until yesterday to pay his debt, which continued mounting with each passing day.
Police were told that the woman and her killer 0were involved in an argument lasting less than two minutes before he shot her.
The suspect was once the owner of a million dollar mall at St James Street before it was seized by bankers to recover outstanding debts.
The man also owned a shoe store on High Street that was also financially troubled.
San Fernando Mayor Ian Atherly, who visited the crime scene, said the shooting was a case of "excessive force" and "not warranted".
"It is so confusing to me that people can take a life so easily. I don't know how police could have stopped this but the detection rate must go up several notches."
Inspector George and Sgts Hamid and Santana led a team of Homicide officers who conducted a crime scene examination before ordering that the store be sealed and police guards posted.
