A man has ap­peared in court in con­nec­tion with an armed heist of a de­liv­ery ve­hi­cle that led to the killing of three sus­pect­ed ban­dits in Tal­paro last Fri­day.

Ser­don Atwell, 34, of Todd’s Road, Tal­paro, stood be­fore a Ch­agua­nas mag­is­trate ear­li­er to­day to an­swer charges of pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion, two counts of rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion and one count of ma­li­cious dam­age of the ve­hi­cle. He was grant­ed $200,000 bail on the rob­bery charges and $80,000 bail on the ma­li­cious dam­age charge. He will reap­pear be­fore an Ari­ma mag­is­trate to­day to an­swer the charge of pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion, af­ter that charge was trans­ferred to that court’s ju­ris­dic­tion.

Atwell was ar­rest­ed on Fri­day af­ter sur­ren­der­ing to po­lice. Since then, po­lice had been try­ing to con­firm if he was con­nect­ed to the rob­bery di­rect­ly, or was a re­luc­tant ac­com­plice when the men showed up at his door armed and with the stolen goods, as his rel­a­tives and neigh­bours had claimed.

On Tues­day night he was charged with the rob­bery of­fences by Long­denville po­lice, while he was charged with pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion at the Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day.

Since Fri­day, Atwell’s pit­bull has prowled his res­i­dence with his fam­i­ly un­sure when its own­er would be home. When they had not heard about charges against him up to yes­ter­day morn­ing, they were con­vinced he was not nec­es­sar­i­ly in league with the three dead men - Ka­reem Welch and his cousins Col­in Welch and Dion Cal­don.

His rel­a­tives con­tin­ued to state his in­no­cence yes­ter­day.

“He didn’t know what was go­ing on, and by the time he re­alise what was hap­pen­ing they jack him up and tell to stay qui­et,” said a rel­a­tive who did not want to be iden­ti­fied.

Last Fri­day, two men an­nounced a hold-up at Pa­pa James Cafe, a mi­ni-mart in Tal­paro. They stole cash, a de­liv­ery van stacked with cig­a­rettes and a se­cu­ri­ty guard’s pis­tol. Fol­low­ing the rob­bery, they took the van to a dead end off La Glo­ria Road, where they cut a hole in the ve­hi­cle and pulled the items from the van.

Res­i­dents said po­lice ap­peared to track the items us­ing a sig­nal of some sort to a house in the area. There, the three sus­pect­ed ban­dits lost their lives in a shootout. Po­lice said six rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were found in the house.

The au­top­sies for the three men were con­duct­ed on Mon­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.

Al­most a week af­ter last week’s gun­play, Tal­paro re­vert­ed to the qui­et calm usu­al­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day. The few peo­ple the T&T Guardian en­coun­tered said they knew lit­tle about Ka­reem Welch and his cousins Col­in Welch and Dion Cal­don.

“Tal­paro is a re­al­ly qui­et area. What hap­pened Fri­day is a once in a blue moon thing,” said a res­i­dent who asked not to be iden­ti­fied.

Most said all they knew about the three men was that they hailed from Brazil Vil­lage, a com­mu­ni­ty some 10 kilo­me­tres north of Tal­paro.

Atwell will reap­pear in the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trate Court next Wednes­day.