Jensen La Vende

By mid 2016, the fore­cast was for the 2016 mur­der toll to be be­tween 460 to 461. By De­cem­ber 30, the body count was 455 and over the next day sev­en more were added to the tal­ly, tak­ing the 2016 toll to 462.

How­ev­er, this was not the high­est ever record­ed in T&T–last year's mur­der toll was 88 less than the 2008 tal­ly of 550 mur­ders.

The first mur­ders were record­ed just as 2016 dawned, when six-year-old Jodel Ram­nath and pen­sion­er Alv­ina Warn­er, 68, were shot dead in what po­lice said was on­go­ing war­fare be­tween the Ras­ta City and Mus­lim gangs in the Port-of Spain Di­vi­sion.

How­ev­er, the re­cur­ring theme for the year was the mur­der of women, many of which re­main un­solved. The most re­cent, that of bank em­ploy­ee Shan­non Ban­field whose de­com­pos­ing body was found in the store­room of IAM and Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed on Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain three days af­ter she was re­port­ed miss­ing on De­cem­ber 8. She had been smoth­ered to death. A work­er at the store where Ban­field's body was found, Dale Seecha­ran, has been charged with her mur­der.

Ban­field was one 45 women killed for the year. On the day her body was found, an­oth­er woman, Cheryl Joan Coop­er, was gunned down out­side her home at Har­mo­ny Hall, near Gas­par­il­lo. She had been shot five times at close range.

Ear­ly in the year, the mur­der of Japan­ese mu­si­cian Asa­mi Na­gakiya grabbed head­lines. Na­gakiya's body was found Ash Wednes­day un­der a tree in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah.

Two oth­er bru­tal killings of women fol­lowed soon afrewe. The first was 26-year-old moth­er of three, Eden Nekeisha Tees­dale, whose head­less body was found in a bar­rel float­ing in the Mi­tan Riv­er, Man­zanil­la, on March 15. Tees­dale lived at Em­bar­cadere, San Fer­nan­do.

One month lat­er, in the same riv­er, an­oth­er woman's body was found. The body of Fe­li­cia Per­sad was found float­ing near the riv­er bank. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said as a con­crete block was tied to the plas­tic in which the body was found wrapped. Per­sad had been re­port­ed miss­ing on April 2.

Anes­sa Mur­ray, of Cas­cade Gar­dens, Cas­cade, was found shot to death in the dri­ver's seat of a grey Nis­san Sly­phy off a dirt road at Penn Trace, Cunu­pia on Feb­ru­ary 3.

On March 14, the body of An­n­marie Bain, 48, was found down a precipice off the Blan­chisseuse By­pass Road Ari­ma. The Preysal woman had been blud­geoned to death with the claw of a ham­mer, her au­top­sy re­vealed. The se­mi-nude body of her hus­band, Raj Sookhai, al­so blud­geoned but with stab wounds to the neck and back as well, had been found at Man­zanil­la beach hours ear­li­er.&nb­sp;

Four days af­ter she dis­ap­peared, the de­com­pos­ing body of 34-year-old Lisa Mata­goolam was found at the bot­tom of a 20-foot precipice in Gran Cou­va on Sep­tem­ber 15. Her hands and feet had bound. Her boyfriend Michael Ramdeo was lat­er charged with her mur­der.

On Oc­to­ber 10, the de­com­pos­ing body of Vanes­sa "Buffy" Ac­k­ee, a pros­ti­tute, was al­so found&nb­sp; down a precipice, this time off Morne Co­co Road. An au­top­sy re­vealed that she died af­ter her neck was bro­ken.

With the body count steadi­ly ris­ing as the year pro­gressed, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) came un­der fire for its low crime de­tec­tion rate. Head of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Se­nior Supt Sace­nar­ine Ma­habir blamed the prob­lem on peo­ple be­ing afraid to go to the po­lice for fear of re­tal­i­a­tion.

By Au­gust, the polti­cians the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion had over­tak­en Port-of-Spain as the coun­try's crime hotspot with the high­est num­ber of mur­ders. On Au­gust 26, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon told po­lice di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders to take charge of their "re­al es­tate". A few months lat­er, di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders were reshuf­fled in the hope that there would be a turn­around in the mur­ders, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the North­ern and Cen­tral Di­vi­sions. There was min­i­mal, if any ef­fect.

Po­lice were on alert brac­ing for reprisals fol­low­ing the mur­der of Sel­wyn "Robo­cop" Alex­is who was shot dead at his car­wash on Ju­ly 17. One of his at­tack­ers, Thomas "Hamza" Sharpe, was killed in the gun bat­tle while Alex­is' friend Kevin Es­cayg, 43, a project man­ag­er of Salde­nah Ter­race, Ma­coya, was al­so killed. Es­cayg's son, Kir­chard Scott, five, was shot in the ab­domen dur­ing the in­ci­dent at Free­dom Street, Ch­agua­nas.

On De­cem­ber 4, Alex­is' broth­er, Mervyn, was al­so killed not too far from where Robo­cop was mur­dered.

Po­lice were baf­fled at the killings of six men in the North­ern Di­vi­sion, in­clud­ing two fa­thers and sons, who were all shot dead. On No­vem­ber 15, Leon Sobers, his son Shiv­on Sobers and Joel Alexan­der were killed at Reid Lane, D'Abadie. Po­lice linked their deaths to the mur­ders of Frank Joseph, his son Kevin Plaza and Plaza's best friend Ri­car­do Singh on No­vem­ber 5.

To­ward the end of the year, the group Pow­er­ful Ladies of T&T (PLOTT) re­leased sta­tis­tics which showed that 75 per cent of mur­ders were com­mit­ted us­ing guns. The ma­jor­i­ty of vic­tims were males of African de­scent and most of the killings took place be­tween 6 pm and 10 pm.

At the fi­nal po­lice brief­ing for the year on De­cem­ber 23, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams said al­though there were 42 more mur­ders than in 2015, it had been a rea­son­ably suc­cess­ful year.

"We have seen an in­crease in mur­ders but we have seen a two per cent de­crease in the over­all to­tal of mur­ders shoot­ings, wound­ings and mur­ders," he said,.

Williams said there was a 23 per cent de­cline in rapes and oth­er sex­u­al re­lat­ed of­fences, a 34 per cent re­duc­tion in kid­nap­pings and 19 per cent re­duc­tion in lar­ce­ny of mo­tor ve­hi­cles. How­ev­er, fraud­u­lent of­fences were up by 62 per cent.