A brazen mid-afternoon shooting has left a 51-year-old corporate manager dead in his vehicle along a busy roadway in Couva, sending shockwaves through the local community and launching a full homicide investigation by regional police authorities.
The victim has been formally identified by law enforcement as Ricardo Diaz, a long-time Arima resident who resided on Pinto Road. According to official police accounts, the first alert about the incident came from a passing motorist just minutes after the shooting unfolded shortly before 5 p.m. on Thursday. That motorist, who was traveling westbound along Rivulet Road, spotted an unoccupied-looking black BYD Sealion 7 SUV stationary in the eastbound lane close to the National Energy facility, blocking the path of oncoming traffic.
Curious about what had happened and hoping to offer help, the motorist pulled over and approached the idling vehicle. What they found was grim: Diaz was slumped unconscious over the driver’s seat, and multiple empty bullet casings were scattered across the asphalt near the car. The motorist immediately contacted the Couva Police Station to report the macabre discovery.
First responding police officers arrived at the crime scene roughly 45 minutes after the initial report, at approximately 5:30 p.m. They confirmed that Diaz had sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and a quick check found no remaining signs of life. Officers quickly moved to cordon off the area to preserve evidence, before alerting the division’s homicide unit of the fatal shooting and requesting specialized investigative support.
Members of the crime scene investigation unit later processed the location, recovering multiple spent shell casings as well as an intact projectile from the scene, evidence that will form the backbone of the ongoing inquiry into the killing. Background checks into Diaz’s life and professional history have confirmed he had worked as a procurement manager at a local Proman warehouse for five years, earning a promotion to head of the procurement department just six months prior to his death.
Witness interviews with colleagues at the facility confirm Diaz was last seen leaving the Proman compound at roughly 4:30 p.m. that same afternoon, just 15 minutes before his vehicle was discovered by the passing motorist. As of the latest updates from law enforcement, investigators have not yet established a clear motive for the killing, and no suspects have been publicly named or taken into custody. The investigation remains active and ongoing as police work to piece together the sequence of events that led to the public shooting.