A senseless act of fatal violence has torn through a Trinidad and Tobago family for the second time in less than a decade, after 25-year-old Shayanna Ruiz was killed in a stabbing rooted in an unpaid $4,500 debt in Chaguanas. The tragedy, which has deepened the family’s long-held grief from a prior violent loss, comes as the country’s annual murder toll holds slightly below last year’s count at 221 as of Wednesday evening.
The fatal confrontation unfolded shortly after 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, when Ruiz arrived at a residence on Plumbago Circular in the Edinburgh 500 South neighborhood accompanied by another person. She had come to collect $4,500 that her former boyfriend had borrowed from her, money she had set aside to advance construction of her own home near her family’s property. According to Trinidad and Tobago Police Service accounts, a heated argument quickly erupted between Ruiz and her ex-boyfriend, before the man’s current girlfriend inserted herself into the conflict. In the heat of the confrontation, the woman grabbed an 11-inch knife and stabbed Ruiz multiple times before fleeing the property with the ex-boyfriend.
First responders Ag Cpl Sarran and WPC Smart rushed Ruiz to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope, where medical teams worked to treat her deep stab wounds to the chest, face and left hand. Despite their efforts, Ruiz succumbed to her injuries just under an hour later, at 6:25 p.m. Preliminary post-mortem findings have ruled her death a homicide caused by cardiopulmonary arrest triggered by multiple penetrating stab wounds. Crime scene investigators, including Cpl Maharaj, W/Ag Cpl Rudder-Fisher and WPC Vieruel-Shah, responded to the property to process evidence, and recovered the murder weapon at the scene. Members of the Homicide Bureau also visited the location, and investigators have identified multiple nearby CCTV systems that may hold critical footage to advance the case, with enquiries ongoing. Two suspects have since been taken into police custody, according to information shared with the victim’s family.
For the Ruiz family, this devastating loss is a brutal repetition of trauma they already endured nearly eight years prior. In November 2018, Shayanna’s older brother Onassis Ruiz was fatally shot in Laventille at the age of 25. Today, the family has now lost two of their three children to violence, both dead at the exact same age, leaving father Kelvin Ruiz to grapple with unthinkable grief for the second time.
In an emotional interview with reporters from his Diego Martin home on Quarry Street, Kelvin Ruiz said no parent could ever be prepared to lose one child to violence, let alone two. “Ain’t no parent can prepare for something like this the first time, far less a second time,” he said, describing the cruel coincidence of losing both his son and daughter at 25 to violent crime as almost impossible to accept. “I went through this with my son, and now I’m going through this with my daughter. It’s a big coincidence for me that my son died at 25, and now my daughter come and dead at 25.”
Kelvin remembered his daughter, whom he affectionately called “Shanna”, as a joyful, warm-hearted person who dedicated herself to bringing happiness to everyone around her. “Shanna is the type of person who would make everybody happy. She was always jolly, always laughing and smiling. Even if you were angry, she would make you smile. You couldn’t remain mad around her. She would brighten up a room just by walking in,” he said. Shayanna worked full-time at a Little Caesars location on Ariapita Avenue in Woodbrook, and Kelvin noted that she would go to extraordinary lengths to support the people she cared about. “If she was your friend, she would go out of her way just to make you happy. But she was making everybody happy, and I had to ask my sister just now: who was making her happy?”
On the day of her death, Kelvin had followed his usual routine, leaving home by 5 a.m. to hike to a remote fishing spot with no cellular service along the coast. It was only when he returned to the top of the mountain on his way home that he noticed five missed calls from different contacts. With no phone credit to return the calls, he planned to sort out the messages once he got home, never imagining he would be greeted by news of his daughter’s death. “I wasn’t expecting to come back to this,” he said. “This is one pain that doesn’t go away. You live with this pain. Sometimes you’re walking down the road and you see something that reminds you of your child, and it all comes flooding back. I lived this with my son. So I know this is what to expect… I don’t know what else to say. I am grieving. I may not be bawling or crying, but I am grieving. I can’t even eat.”
Shayanna had taken out a $10,000 loan earlier this year to lay the foundation for her own home on land near the family’s property, and the $4,500 she was owed was part of that funding, her father explained. She had lent the sum to her ex-boyfriend when he needed it, and had been pushing for repayment to keep her construction project on track. Kelvin added that he had even spoken to his daughter’s ex-boyfriend before the confrontation to urge a peaceful resolution, telling him, “instead of anything happening, give her back her money.” The man had agreed to pay half the debt upfront and the remainder at a later date, but after that conversation, Shayanna began receiving abusive text messages from the pair, which she showed her father. “I never expected this. I never expected murder. I would have thought quarrelling and arguing. But now I come home to hear she died by multiple stab wounds, and over $4,500?” Kelvin said.
Shayanna’s stepsister, who requested to remain unnamed, remembered her as an outspoken, caring woman who served as the fierce protector of her large extended family. “She was a very loving person. She had no children of her own, but all of her siblings’ children were her children,” she said. “She was the protector of the family because anytime anyone was under stress, it was always her who would step up. If anyone talked bad about any of us, she was the one defending everyone.” She added that Shayanna loved fashion and worked hard to earn the money to afford the things she wanted, never relying on others to provide for her.
As of Wednesday night, the national murder toll for the current year stands at 221, a slight decrease from the 226 recorded by the same point last year.