A fatal violent incident in Trinidad’s Woodford Gardens neighborhood has led to a formal murder charge for a 25-year-old local woman, following weeks of investigative work and legal review. Aaliyah Naipal, a resident of the Woodford Gardens area at the intersection of Oak Avenue and Coconut Drive, has been accused of killing Gregory Reece, a local Chaguanas businessman who died from multiple stab wounds on the night of June 28.
Naipal made her first court appearance on Monday before a High Court Master, after Director of Public Prosecutions officials reviewed the case file and provided formal legal advice authorizing the murder charge. Following the brief hearing, the accused was remanded into state prison custody to await further legal proceedings in the capital case.
Law enforcement investigators have outlined the timeline of the fatal incident: Reece traveled to the Woodford Gardens apartment the evening of June 28, and shortly after his arrival, he became involved in a verbal altercation with an individual at the property. During the confrontation, Reece was stabbed multiple times.
Emergency Health Services first responders were dispatched immediately to the scene after emergency calls were placed. When they arrived, medics found Reece already unresponsive, and he was officially pronounced dead at the apartment by medical personnel. Naipal was taken into police custody at the scene directly after the stabbing, and has remained in detention throughout the ongoing investigation.
Reece, a 50-something-year-old local businessman, was laid to rest in a public funeral service held this past Sunday. Court records also show Reece had a prior interaction with the Trinidad and Tobago justice system: in 2017, he was arrested and charged with two criminal offences – uttering forged valuable securities and obtaining funds by false pretences. Those charges stemmed from allegations that more than TT$1.4 million in fraudulent cheques, issued from an official account controlled by the Arima Borough Corporation, were illegally deposited into a commercial bank account linked to Reece. At the time of his death, that earlier 2017 case was still pending in the court system.