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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Jury shown video footage

by

20140606

The ju­ry in the Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man mur­der tri­al was shown video footage yes­ter­day of the house where the State con­tends the busi­ness­woman was mur­dered.The ju­ry did not get to view the en­tire record­ing as le­gal ar­gu­ments forced High Court Judge Mal­colm Holdip to or­der the 12-mem­ber pan­el to re­turn to­day when the tri­al re­sumes.Yes­ter­day Cpl Nigel Stephens of the po­lice Au­dio Vi­su­al Unit point­ed out two of the 12 ac­cused as be­ing on the record­ing.It showed in­side and out­side the un­paint­ed brick house at Up­per La Puer­ta Av­enue, Diego Mar­tin.

In­side the house, a pooltable was shown propped up against a wall. The State al­leges that Naipaul-Cool­man was seat­ed on the pooltable be­fore she was shot once in the chest.

Stephens said on the night of Jan­u­ary 5, 2006 he spoke with then ACP Mau­rice Pig­gott be­fore head­ing to po­lice head­quar­ters. Around 4 am the fol­low­ing day he and Sgt Fred­er­ick went to Diego Mar­tin where Fred­er­ick point­ed out the red brick house.Af­ter­ward he be­gan video record­ing peo­ple, three of whom had been ar­rest­ed at the house, and oth­er ob­jects in and around the house.

Stephens al­so record­ed a two-storey house next to the house where Naipaul-Cool­man was al­leged­ly killed. In that house a black hand­gun and mag­a­zine shown on the tape were found.

He said he sub­se­quent­ly hand­ed over the record­ing to then Supt Nad­hir Khan.Naipaul-Cool­man, the CEO of Xtra Foods Su­per­mar­ket, Grand Bazaar, was snatched from her home at Radix Road, Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas, around 8.30 pm on De­cem­ber 19, 2006.A $122,000 ran­som was paid for her re­lease but she has nev­er been seen since and her body has not been found.

Be­fore the court

The ac­cused are Sher­von "Buffy" Pe­ters; Kei­da Gar­cia, Mar­lon "Mad Man Mar­lon" Trim­ming­ham; Earl "Bobo" Trim­ming­ham; Ronald "22" Arm­strong; An­to­nio "Hedges" Charles; Joel "Nin­ja" Fras­er; Lyn­don "Iron" James; Al­lan "Scann" Mar­tins; De­von "Black­boy" Pe­ters; An­tho­ny Dwayne Gloster, al­so called An­tho­ny Pe­ters and Jamile "WASA" Gar­cia. A 13th ac­cused, Raphael Williams, died in prison in 2011.


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