Exactly three weeks after the decomposing body of 20-year-old bank worker Shannon Banfield was found at IAM Company Ltd’s Charlotte Street store, the business place reopened yesterday.
However, it was not business as usual at the store as staff were repeatedly confronted by jeers and taunts by shoppers and pedestrians.
Many shoppers were seen peeping inside the store and walking away. Some mothers were seen shielding and pulling their children away as they stopped to enquire why members of the media were at the store.
“Don’t buy, just walk on by,” one woman shouted as she walked past the store.
“I just went inside and buy something small to maco the layout of the place. I not going inside there again,” another woman said.
A worker at a store next door shouted on a loudspeaker system for shoppers to boycott the company.
“A woman went inside there and came out in a body bag. Don’t let that happen to you,” the worker said.
Even signs indicating 10 per cent sale on all items in the store was not enough to entice some customers.
“Ten per cent? They should give away everything and close down,” a woman shouted from the pavement.
While staff allowed media personnel to walk around the store and take photographs, they were tight-lipped over the response to the re-opening. There had been growing calls for a boycott of the store on social media after Banfield’s death.
The store’s owner Ishmael Ali told CNC3 News that his business was badly affected since the discovery of Banfield’s body in the store on December 8. He estimated losing approximately $2 million due to its closure during the peak Christmas season.
Asked about why it wasn’t reopened after police had cleared the building last week, Ali said he kept it closed out of respect for Banfield’s family, who were still grieving.
Ali also claimed that his other locations at Macoya Industrial Estate and Frederick Street in Port-of-Spain, had also seen a drastic drop in revenue with additional losses estimated at $2 million.
Banfield, of Mc Carthy Street, Cantaro Village, Santa Cruz, was last seen leaving her workplace—Republic Bank’s Independence Square branch—around 4 pm on December 5.
In a telephone conversation with her mother, Sherry-Ann Lopez, around that time, Banfield said she was going to purchase items at IAM.
Banfield’s body was discovered hidden under some boxes in the company’s third floor storeroom around 1.30 pm on December 8, by employees who were searching for the source of a strong decomposing scent which they believe was a dead rat.
An autopsy stated she had been smothered and police recovered what they believed to be a murder weapon, a bloodied towel, near where she was found.
Dale Seecharan, an employee at the store was charged with the murder. Seecharan is scheduled to reappear in court on January 17.
