In his mind's eye, Rampersad Deyal remembers his sons only in the innocence of their youth. He wants nothing to remind him that outside of home, Mukesh and Sudesh Deyal were cold-blooded multiple murderers, bank robbers, and the leaders of a gang that, during several months in 2001, laid siege to a nation and its police force...
News Source: Trinidad Express
"When I hear they die, I tell them I don't even want the bodies. I get rid of their photographs, everything, because you never let the bad apples spoil the good ones, you hear,"? remarked Deyal, who has three other children.
The last known member of the Mukesh Deyal gang, Ryan Jaipaul, was killed in a hail of police bullets last Wednesday, bringing to closure a hunt that was spawned by the events of the night of November 23, 2000.
Some weeks after that night, the gang telephoned the Mon Repos Police Station with the message: "We going down with guns blazing and kill any police who get in our way".
In the years between, they would would kill three double-crossing former accomplices and a fourth man,? and shoot at least ten people, including a police corporal.
? That night in November, the Deyal brothers led a group of pump action shotgun-carrying thieves, including Adesh Ramkissoon, Neil Singh, Rennie "Abu" Francis? and Floyd Williams to Republic Bank's branch on Chancery Lane, San Fernando, to carry out a robbery.
They waited until the guards were moving the money bags from the armoured truck to the bank, and then struck.
They got away with an estimated $2 million, leaving the armoured truck in the car park of the San Fernando General Hospital after offloading the loot and leaving behind the bags of coins.
? Police investigators believe it was a disagreement over how the loot should be divided amongst the gang which triggered the resulting rampage. The Deyals believed they were "sold out" by accomplices who reported them to police, and sources told the Sunday Express that more than half the stolen money was later "taken" from the Deyals.
? Hiding out at the homes of girlfriends in Penal, San Fernando and Tunapuna, the angry Deyal brothers decided to kill everyone connected with the crime.
On the night of December 13, 2000, they shot their way into? the home of "Abu" Francis at Sancho Road, New Grant.
Francis was shot six times but lived. His cousin,? boxer Alvin Lynch, who was visiting, paid the price with his life.
? Then came the death threat calls to the Mon Repos and San Fernando CID stations,
which prompted officers to set up barriers at the entrance to the San Fernando station to prevent a drive-by shooting, and a call by officers for guns to match the firepower of the gang, who were using UZI-Sub Machine guns based on the shells found at the New Grant crime scene.
Led by then Assistant Police Commissioner Cecil Carrington, a three-month hunt yielded no success.
Then the Deyal brothers and Jaipaul remerged on March 12, 2001, when they opened fire on Corporal Derrick Matthew-Noel on Coffee Street, San Fernando, while he drove home with his wife and two children.
He was wounded but lived.
Nine days later, they killed double crosser Floyd Williams, of Friendship Village, San Fernando, in the San Fernando General Hospital's car park, a move that prompted MTS guards to abandon their guard post at the lonely western entrance to the hospital.
Within 48 hours, the Deyals found "Abu" Francis. Discharged from hospital, he was sitting on the pavement outside the High Street, Princes Town branch of Pizza Boys with friends.
It was 9 p.m. and, with the Princes Town Police Station 12 buildings away, the Deyals put on ski masks and shot Abu dead, before they began some indiscriminate shooting. Six people were hit, including a woman eating a meal at Pizza Boys and a man drinking a beer at a second floor night club.
Danny Knutt said he was playing cards in a nearby bar.
"When I had passed by, Abu was standing up outside Pizza Boys. Then I start to hear shots and two policemen in the club just start firing back. When I walk out after, Abu was lying on his face, already dead. People were scampering."
They then tried killing Brent "Bat" Hudlin, who was shot 13 times at Lord Street, San Fernando. He survived.
The police caught up with three of the gang members at the Gulf View traffic lights on April 6, 2001, while they were reportedly on their way to rob another bank in San Fernando.
Sudesh Deyal, Mukesh's 28-year-old brother, Neil Singh and Adesh Ramkissoon were shot more than 40 times, relatives would later claim, in an incident with police about which details are still sketchy.
They were found with an UZi, a Tech? 9 and 9 mm Beretta, along with ammunition, cell phones and money.
Only Jaipaul and Mukesh Deyal remained alive.
A week later, police issued a wanted poster in which Mukesh was described as armed and dangerous and HIV-positive.
He telephoned this reporter to make a death threat. He later claimed he was a witness to the killing of his brothers and "friends" and promised to call again to tell all he knew.
But on May 5, 2001, he was arrested at a woman's house at Ragoo Street, Tunapuna, and charged with the murder of "Abu" Francis.
Within four months, he was freed in the Princes Town Magistrates' Court after the State failed to make a case against him.
Soon after, an attempt was made to execute Jaipaul. Shot three times in the head, he lived and, months later, staged his kidnapping outside his home at Friendship Village, San Fernando.
Last Wednesday, police caught up with Jaipaul, killing him and another man.
Mukesh all but disappeared until July 23 last year when police tried serving a warrant on him for arms and ammunition possession.
That day he died as he had lived, after trying to shoot his way to freedom. In the house, police found a stolen television and air conditioning unit. Mukesh had apparently turned to petty thievery.
He was 30 years old.
Tales of the exploits of the Deyal brothers live on in Princes Town where they were born and grew up.
Both graduated from Cowen Hamilton College, and neither needed money. Their father, who owned a fleet of trucks and a brick factory, built a mansion for his family in one of the most affluent parts of Princes Town.
When first approached by the Sunday Express, Rampersad Deyal, 63, his eyes wide and sad, was quick to say: "I don't want to have nothing to do with them.
When they were outside this house, they did their thing, they were like tigers."
But he softened later, speaking of his disappointment at not having been able to convince his two infamous children to follow his path in life.
In 1982, their mother died, he said.
"And, when you not around and have to work hard, they got out of hand," he said.
Rampersad said he last saw his boys ten years ago, when they were already career criminals.
"I told them 'try and get out of this stupidness'. They said 'yes, pappy, yes pappy'. The next thing I hear the police shoot them."
In the ten years since that visit, Deyal said "they could not come to my house. I decide that even if they were children and have to live like that, they have to go. When you don't listen, you can't stay with me (because) I lived a straight and upright life.? I sent both of them to school and they came out with good education. I don't want to remember them as bandit."
Deyal said when he learnt of the deaths of Mukesh and Sudesh, "I told them keep the body and do what you want. I didn't want no funeral here to stain my reputation or my other children. You have to ask somebody else what happen to the funerals".
Deyal believes he did the best he could with his sons.
"But you make your children but not their minds. You try and grow them up as good as possible," he remarked.
The $2 million stolen by the gang was never recovered.
