Even af­ter be­ing shot in her leg by her kid­nap­pers, Cen­tral busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man still man­aged to cling on to life for eight days in an aban­doned house in La Puer­ta, Diego Mar­tin, be­fore she was even­tu­al­ly ex­e­cut­ed. As she col­lapsed from a bul­let to the chest at point blank range, the group of men who were hold­ing her cap­tive im­me­di­ate­ly reached for their rub­ber gloves and a ro­tary saw, then be­gan the process of dis­mem­ber­ing her body. Naipaul-Cool­man's body parts were then buried in a shal­low grave un­der a cashew tree lo­cat­ed in a forest­ed area near­by.These were just some of the grue­some de­tails in the State's open­ing ad­dress to a 12-mem­ber ju­ry, with six al­ter­nates, at the start of the for­mer su­per­mar­ket chief ex­ec­u­tive's mur­der tri­al in Port-of-Spain High Court yes­ter­day.

The State's lead pros­e­cu­tor, Is­rael Khan, SC, who de­liv­ered the open­ing ad­dress, not­ed that be­cause Naipaul-Cool­man's body was nev­er re­cov­ered by po­lice, the de­tails of how she was killed were pieced to­geth­er from the ev­i­dence its main wit­nesss, Keon Gloster, who was the neigh­bour of most of the ac­cused, pro­vid­ed and the cir­cum­stan­tial and sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence in the case."The pros­e­cu­tion is un­able to say with cer­tain­ty whether she was dead or alive when she was dis­mem­bered," Khan said.The ju­ry and mem­bers of the pub­lic in the court seemed to cringe on hear­ing the vivid de­scrip­tion of the events. Many of the dozen stone-faced ac­cused men, how­ev­er, chat­ted qui­et­ly amongst them­selves as the de­tails were dis­closed."They cut off her legs up to her bel­ly. They cut off both arms from her shoul­ders. They cut off her head. They cut her bel­ly and chest," Khan said.While Khan be­gan his ad­dress by ad­mit­ting that pros­e­cu­tors could not prove that the dozen ac­cused men were be­hind Naipaul-Cool­man's kid­nap­ping, he nonethe­less gave the State's ver­sion of the events which took place on the night of De­cem­ber 19, 2006.

Khan ex­plained that short­ly af­ter 8 pm, Naipaul-Cool­man was re­turn­ing home from work when she was ac­cost­ed by three gun­men as she pulled in­to the dri­ve­way of her Radix Road, Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas, home.

He said that the State would be re­ly­ing on ev­i­dence of three wit­ness­es to the busi­ness­woman's ab­duc­tion, her hus­band Ren­nie Cool­man, her daugh­ter from a pre­vi­ous mar­riage, Risha Ali, and her live-in house­keep­er Rasheedan Ya­coob, who were all home at the time.He said that all three will tes­ti­fy that they heard Naipaul-Cool­man's car in the dri­ve­way and saw three masked men with guns bang­ing on the win­dows. They will al­so tes­ti­fy that they heard a vol­ley of gun­shots and by the time they con­tact­ed po­lice, Naipaul-Cool­man had al­ready been ab­duct­ed, he said.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors found Naipaul-Cool­man's glass­es, her den­tures and emp­ty shell cas­ing near to a pud­dle of Naipaul-Cool­man's blood on the dri­ve­way near her car.

Ran­som calls for months

Khan al­so said the rel­a­tives would tes­ti­fy on the dozens of ran­som calls they re­ceived, which last­ed for months af­ter Naipaul-Cool­man's ab­duc­tion and even­tu­al ex­e­cu­tion."There was an in­sa­tiable thirst for mon­ey. You know af­ter they killed this woman this dis­tinct voice was still call­ing for mon­ey," Khan said.Two se­nior em­ploy­ees at Naipaul-Cool­man's Xtra Foods su­per­mar­ket chain – broth­ers Abid and Farouk Nab­bie – who were in­volved in the drop off of a $122,000 ran­som pay­ment in Mau­si­ca, Ari­ma, hours af­ter her ab­duc­tion, are al­so ex­pect­ed to tes­ti­fy in the tri­al.Khan claimed that af­ter the kid­nap­ping, Naipaul-Cool­man was bound and gagged us­ing duct tape and tak­en to an in­com­plete red brick struc­ture at Up­per La Puer­ta Road, Diego Mar­tin, re­ferred to by the ac­cused men as "black al­bum", where she was kept cap­tive un­til her death. In refer­ing to An­tho­ny Gloster's ev­i­dence against his neigh­bours, Khan said it was the State's case that Naipaul-Cool­man was killed three days af­ter Christ­mas.He said that Gloster, who was 17 at the time, told po­lice that on De­cem­ber 28, he went to the build­ing and saw one of the ac­cused men, Lyn­don James, beat­ing the woman and de­mand­ing mon­ey be­fore draw­ing a gun and shoot­ing her in her chest. Gloster's tes­ti­mo­ny im­pli­cates the group of men and places all of them at the scene of her ex­e­cu­tion.

Body parts­dumped at sea

Naipaul-Cool­man's body was then cut in­to sev­er­al pieces which were placed in black garbage bags. The body parts were lat­er buried un­der sheets of gal­vanised roof­ing in a forest­ed area near­by.Khan told the ju­ry that by the time Gloster had giv­en his state­ment to po­lice and car­ried them to scene of the mur­der and bur­ial, the body parts had al­ready been moved.He claimed that they were ex­humed by the men af­ter they were first ques­tioned by po­lice and re­leased in Jan­u­ary 2007 and dumped at sea.Some of the cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence re­cov­ered by po­lice, and which is be­ing re­lied on in the tri­al, in­clude duct tape and dig­ging im­ple­ments found in the aban­doned house, gal­va­nize sheets and a shal­low ditch at the site iden­ti­fied by Gloster.

The State is al­so re­ly­ing on sev­er­al pieces of DNA ev­i­dence which were found at the scenes of the kid­nap­ping and mur­der.These in­clude a piece of duct tape with Naipaul-Cool­man's blood that was found in the house, a blood-stained glove that was found near the house and bal­las­tic ev­i­dence which shows that a shell cas­ing found in her dri­ve­way matched a gun found at the home of one of the ac­cused, Kei­da Gar­cia.Khan said while Gloster may at­tempt to re­cant his orig­i­nal state­ment to po­lice in the tri­al, it still as­sist­ed in im­pli­cat­ing the group as it ac­cu­rate­ly de­scribed and ex­plained the ev­i­dence found in­de­pen­dent­ly by po­lice.The tri­al re­sumes to­mor­row.

Who's in court

The dozen men be­fore the ju­ry and Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip are: Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin, twin broth­ers Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, sib­lings Kei­da and Jamille Gar­cia and their old­er broth­er An­tho­ny Dwayne Gloster, broth­ers Mar­lon and Earl Trim­ming­ham, Ronald Arm­strong, An­to­nio Charles, Joel Fras­er and Lyn­don James. A 13th man, Raphael Williams, was charged with the crime but died in prison in 2011 of com­pli­ca­tions from sick­le-cell anaemia.Their le­gal team in­cludes Ul­ric Sker­ritt, Joseph Pan­tor, Sel­wyn Mo­hammed, Lennox Sankers­ingh, Ian Brooks, Wayne Sturge, Mario Mer­ritt, Richard Valere, Kwe­si Bekoe, Col­in Selvon, Vince Charles, Chris­t­ian Chan­dler, Deli­cia Hel­wig and Alex­ia Romero.

The pros­e­cu­tion team in­cludes Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, Gilbert Pe­ter­son and Dana See­ta­hal, who are be­ing as­sist­ed by se­nior state pros­e­cu­tor Joy Balka­ran.