Kevon Felmine

Eleven days of hope­ful search­es for Michael Shas­tri Dook­ie end­ed trag­i­cal­ly yes­ter­day when po­lice found his de­com­pos­ing body near an oil well in San­ta Flo­ra.

Some rel­a­tives were still learn­ing about the trag­ic news last night and they said his moth­er, Cyn­thia, was in an in­con­solable state.

Based on days of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, of­fi­cers from the Pe­nal CID, in­clud­ing Sgt Ram­s­ingh, Cpl Thomp­son, PC Singh and PC Ho­sein went to a Petrotrin Field Road. Af­ter trekking some 100 me­tres off the road, they found Dook­ie's body wrapped in a tar­pau­lin around 1.30 pm.

He was iden­ti­fied through his cov­er­all which bore his name.

Al­though the cause of death is yet to be de­ter­mined, in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve he was mur­dered the day he went miss­ing. An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, to­day to de­ter­mine the cause of his death.

His Hyundai H100 truck is yet to be found, lead­ing po­lice to be­lieve he was robbed and killed.

Last week, his moth­er told the T&T Guardian closed cir­cuit tele­vi­sion footage showed Dook­ie, 28, leav­ing his home at Bhimull Trace, San Fran­cique, Wood­land, around 11 am on Sep­tem­ber 15.

She said she spoke to him around 7 am as he was leav­ing for work at Jokhan's Con­trac­tors. She said she left home around 8 am and when she re­turned around 11.30 am she no­ticed his garage gate was opened.

She called out to him and af­ter get­ting no re­sponse, she went to her home and called his cell­phone. How­ev­er, all calls to his phone were unan­swered and when he did not re­turn home that night she re­port­ed his dis­ap­pear­ance to the po­lice.

Checks with his su­per­vi­sor the fol­low­ing morn­ing showed that he did not re­port to work. The last his col­leagues saw of him was when he left work that same day to make a de­liv­ery in San Fran­cique for his su­per­vi­sor. The mur­der toll for the year now stands at 335.