Joel Bal­con, who was said to be the mas­ter­mind in the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of court clerk An­drea Bharatt on Jan­u­ary 29, did not de­ny that he was a rapist in the pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cer hours af­ter he was held. This, how­ev­er, was on­ly af­ter a sus­pect and ac­quain­tance lev­elled the ac­cu­sa­tion against him in front of the cops as they were be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed.

Andrea Bharatt.

"Joel, you fa­mous for rap­ing peo­ple girl chil­dren and all that," the sus­pect said. Bal­con re­spond­ed, "I not deny­ing that, but I doh kid­nap no­body."

Ex­cept for that, all the of­fi­cers at­tempt­ing to get in­for­ma­tion from the men ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with Bharatt's kid­nap­ping in Ari­ma got, was that a young la­dy look­ing like Bharatt was tak­en to a house in San­gre Grande by Bal­con, who ve­he­ment­ly de­nied this. The men re­sort­ed most­ly to play­ing the blame game dur­ing the rest of the con­ver­sa­tion in front of the po­lice. Bal­con main­tained his in­no­cence through­out.

This in­for­ma­tion, con­tained in a nine-minute record­ing ex­clu­sive­ly ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia and au­then­ti­cat­ed by at least three dif­fer­ent in­tel­li­gence sources, gives some in­sight in­to Bal­con's think­ing and the way he op­er­at­ed.

Five days af­ter she was kid­napped, Bharatt's bloat­ed body was found thrown over a precipice in the Heights of Aripo. In the end, the sus­pect and oth­ers were re­leased.

Bal­con, the main sus­pect who re­mained in po­lice cus­tody, sub­se­quent­ly died and took his se­crets to the grave. An­oth­er sus­pect, Ne­gus George, has since been charged with the mur­der of Bharatt.

Bal­con was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal on Jan­u­ary 31 af­ter he al­leged­ly sus­tained in­juries while try­ing to es­cape po­lice cus­tody dur­ing a search for Bharatt in an area in San­gre Grande. Bal­con, who was paral­ysed and in an un­con­scious state, died eight days lat­er at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope. An au­top­sy re­vealed he died from mul­ti­ple blunt trau­ma to the body.

Flashback,February: Homicide officers look down the precipice where the body of kidnapped victim Andrea Bharatt was found in the Heights of Aripo.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice records, Bal­con had a long rap sheet of sex­u­al, firearm, rob­bery, kid­nap­ping, rape and lar­ce­ny of­fences.

Bal­con, An­drew Mor­ris and sev­er­al oth­er sus­pects were round­ed up by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) with­in 36 hours af­ter Bharatt was ab­duct­ed af­ter board­ing a taxi to head to her home on the Ari­ma Old Road. Mor­ris was al­so in po­lice cus­tody when he died at the hos­pi­tal on Feb­ru­ary 1 and an au­top­sy re­vealed he died of blunt force trau­ma.

On so­cial me­dia and through­out the coun­try, the pop­u­la­tion had mixed emo­tions about the death of the two. Some called for jus­tice on be­half of the men's fam­i­lies, while oth­ers felt it was a fit­ting end for Bharatt's mur­der, which trig­gered an emo­tion­al re­sponse and vig­ils through­out T&T.

The death of the men sparked out­rage from their fam­i­lies and lat­er, a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion was ini­ti­at­ed by the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) in­to the ac­tion of close to 25 SORT of­fi­cers who had the men un­der their watch dur­ing the in­ter­ro­ga­tion.

Sev­er­al SORT of­fi­cers were ques­tioned and re­leased but the head of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, In­spec­tor Mark Her­nan­dez, af­ter be­ing held at the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion for five days, was charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and placed on $300,000 bail. Mere min­utes af­ter Her­nan­dez was re­leased last Mon­day, he broke his si­lence on the mat­ter.

“It is very un­for­tu­nate what hap­pened to the two guys and they did not die in po­lice cus­tody but died while seek­ing med­ical at­ten­tion and they were brought to the hos­pi­tal by the of­fi­cers,” Her­nan­dez said.

“I can tell you the two per­sons (Joel Bal­con and An­drew Mor­ris) who died, died with a lot of se­crets. We want­ed them alive so they could be brought be­fore a com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ty to an­swer for their crimes.”

Inspector Mark Hernandez, leader of the Special Operations Response Team.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

This is the ex­cerpt of the nine-minute record­ing ex­clu­sive­ly ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia and au­then­ti­cat­ed by at least three dif­fer­ent in­tel­li­gence sources.

The man (sus­pect) to Bal­con: "Joel you fa­mous for rap­ing peo­ple girl chil­dren and all that."

Bal­con: I not deny­ing that, but I doh kid­nap no­body. You know I did not bring any girl by you eh boy

Man: Why you say­ing that I have that in­fo?

Bal­con: Tall­man tell me that the girl by you (name called)

Man: Me ain't know no Tall­man Joel you on re­al s***.

Bal­con: Tell the po­lice the truth nah boy, you telling po­lice I bring the girl by you.

Man: Joel you on re­al s***, you come and check my un­cle for two hours eh. God will pun­ish you Joel boy.

Bal­con main­tained, "I eh bring no girl by you, so why you telling the po­lice I bring girl by you?

Bal­con told the man that he was told that Tall­man left the girl (An­drea) with him.

The man: "What frick­ing girl? Who the ass is Tall­man boy?

Bal­con: So when the po­lice come yuh tell them the girl was there?

Man: Be­cause I fright­en and you was by my un­cle up­stairs for two hours!

Bal­con: Right, right.

Man: That was Fri­day?

Bal­con: That was no Fri­day!

Man: So when that was?

Bal­con: That was prob­a­bly Wednes­day or some­thing, when I tell all yuh about the no­tice.

Man: No, no pa­lo that was no Wednes­day about no no­tice, that was the day af­ter(sic) that was Fri­day so take your time!

Bal­con: What time I was by your un­cle?

Man: You was (sic) by my un­cle let we say 3, no af­ter 3,4 so.

Bal­con: And the in­ci­dent take place af­ter 6, so all yuh just give back the po­lice the girl please nah boy.

Man: Boy stop com­ing around me Joel boy.....

The man told po­lice then he was will­ing to take a lie de­tec­tor test and said he would nev­er "har­bour any­body's girl child," be­cause he al­so had a child.

Bal­con con­tin­ued to in­sist that the man need­ed to hand over the girl (An­drea) to the po­lice.

The man re­spond­ed by say­ing that he (Joel) should stop re­peat­ing the same thing over and over again and tell the truth.

But Bal­con in­sist­ed that he was in­no­cent.

Bal­con: Be­cause this is a se­ri­ous thing boy, I nev­er say I drop any girl by you eh, Tall­man tell me that the girl by you boy.

Man: You say Tall­man tell you and now I hear­ing a dif­fer­ent thing.

Bal­con: You telling peo­ple I drop a girl by you. I nev­er drop no girl by you. I had no trans­port to drop the girl by you af­ter be­cause I drop back the rental.

Man: I see you talk­ing to my un­cle (name called) for two hours and you doh come there, you dig? You doh come there, I dun­no what all yuh talk about.

A po­lice of­fi­cer's voice briefly in­ter­rupts the con­ver­sa­tion be­tween the men to ask the man what time of the night Bal­con was speak­ing to the man's un­cle.

Man: It was "com­ing to dark" and that Bal­con and his un­cle "fed up get lock up to­geth­er."

Man: "Sir, I am telling the truth and will take a lie de­tec­tor test to prove I am in­no­cent. That man there is a liar, rap­er(sic), he is a thief and he is a mur­der­er. He is every­thing in one."

Bal­con: "I is( sic) a mur­der­er?"

Bal­con con­tin­ued to in­sist that he did not know the where­abouts of Bharatt and claimed the oth­er man knew.

The man main­tained that he had no idea about what Bal­con was re­fer­ring to, nor did he know any­one called Tall­man.

An­oth­er cop's voice in­ter­venes and asks the man if Bal­con came to his home in the East with a girl on Fri­day (Jan­u­ary 29).

Man: Yes sir

Bal­con: I come by you Fri­day with a girl? What time Fri­day I come by you with any girl?

Man: Sir he come on Fri­day with a young la­dy in the car, a Ti­i­da. A red skin girl, short In­di­an.

The man said Bal­con came to his un­cle's home in the night and two of them were in the car.

But Bal­con tried to dis­miss these al­le­ga­tions.

Bal­con: You see how his sto­ry not adding up, he just say­ing he ain't bring no girl.

Man: Two of all yuh was in the car

Bal­con: Stop ly­ing nah boy

Cop: He went up­stairs and talk to your un­cle for two hours, who was in the car?

Man: I dun­no sir.

Bal­con: You could re­al lie boy.

Cop: How you see the girl?

Man: Be­cause she come out the car sir, once she come out the car she was in the yard

Bal­con: You could re­al lie boy

Man: She come out of the car, that is how I see the young la­dy.

Cop: And how long she stay out the car?

Man: She did not stay long, she comes out of the car with him and he went up­stairs and then un­cle come out­side, and then she was go­ing up­stairs right, so two of them went up­stairs to­geth­er and she comes back down­stairs and went in the car.

Bal­con: All yuh see he ly­ing, that girl get rob late.

Man: Stop ly­ing boy!

Cop: So you saw the girl?

Man: Yes, when I peep out­side I saw the lit­tle girl walk­ing up be­hind, she was skin­ny and when they reach up­stairs he and un­cle was talk­ing, I dun­no what they were talk­ing about. I was not up­stairs so I dun­no.

The man was asked how long the girl (An­drea) was up­stairs and what he thought they were do­ing to the girl. But the man re­spond­ed, "I dun­no sir."

The cop asked the man, "You saw the pic­ture of the miss­ing girl and they show you the pic­ture?"

Man: Yes sir

Cop: And what did you say?

Man: The girl look sim­i­lar to the girl sir.

The record­ing then ends.

BOX:

Sup­sect's un­cle helped cops in search for Bharatt

Sources said the sus­pect's un­cle al­so as­sist­ed po­lice in their search for Bharatt and was lat­er re­leased.

Sev­er­al weeks ago, Bal­con's fa­ther spoke to Guardian Me­dia and had promised to break his si­lence about his son. He told Guardian Me­dia that the fam­i­ly did not have enough mon­ey to bury Bal­con. The fam­i­ly re­mained se­cre­tive about Bal­con's bur­ial.

Sources close to the fam­i­ly sub­se­quent­ly told Guardian Me­dia that two weeks af­ter Bal­con's death in late Feb­ru­ary, his fam­i­ly buried him qui­et­ly in east Trinidad.