Geisha Kow­lessar

Of­ten homi­cide cas­es are "screwed up from the very be­gin­ning" due to slop­py work on the part of the po­lice. Ac­cord­ing to foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr Valery Alexan­drov, who is as­signed to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, be­cause of shod­dy work many cas­es have gone cold. Cit­ing the death of eight-year-old Daniel Guer­ra as an ex­am­ple, Alexan­drov, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said while the man­ner of death may have been de­ter­mined, the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing it were yet to be de­cid­ed which may re­sult in the probe be­com­ing cold.

He added: "An au­top­sy does not solve the crime. It is part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The po­lice are sup­posed to pro­vide cer­tain cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence which will in­clude de­tails and pho­tos of the crime scene to paint a more com­pre­hen­sive pic­ture. "In most cas­es when a body is brought in the po­lice don't even know the name of the vic­tim. They would say, 'we just es­cort­ing the body.' But po­lice work is not an es­cort ser­vice." He said al­though he de­vel­oped a spe­cial form to be filled out by po­lice to pro­vide cir­cum­stan­tial in­for­ma­tion be­fore an au­top­sy, in most cas­es that too was ig­nored.

In Daniel's case, he said, lit­tle or no cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence was pro­vid­ed by the po­lice. He added: "The boy's au­top­sy will not solve the case. It is the po­lice who have to do their work by prop­er­ly gath­er­ing cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence from the very be­gin­ning and if that's not so it would mean the po­lice are lazy. "That's why we have a de­tec­tion of rate of sev­en per cent at best, be­cause from the very on­set cas­es are screwed up by the po­lice be­cause there is no gath­er­ing of cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence," Alexan­drov said.

The pathol­o­gist won­dered whether pho­tographs were tak­en of tyre marks, or of foot­prints, near the riv­er where Daniel's body was found.Of­fi­cers from the Crime Scene Unit (CSU), Alexan­drov con­tend­ed, were not prop­er­ly trained and they "don't have a clue" about the gath­er­ing of foren­sic ev­i­dence."In the Unit­ed States there are med­ical in­ves­ti­ga­tors to gath­er foren­sic ev­i­dence. In Trinidad most of the po­lice don't know the dif­fer­ence be­tween blood and de­com­po­si­tion flu­id. "Some of the of­fi­cers don't know the dif­fer­ence be­tween close and dis­tant range or the dif­fer­ent types of cal­i­bres," he said. Alexan­drov added that med­ical in­ves­ti­ga­tors work in tan­dem with the po­lice and were spe­cial­ly trained to de­tect wounds, rig­or mor­tis and oth­er ma­te­r­i­al re­lat­ing to pathol­o­gy.

"The po­lice would then gath­er the phys­i­cal ev­i­dence,"Alexan­drov ex­plained.Daniel went miss­ing around mid­day two Fri­days ago af­ter leav­ing his Be­deau Street, Gas­par­il­lo, home to go to a near­by par­lour.His body was found in a riv­er off the Tarou­ba Link Road, San Fer­nan­do, two days lat­er.Alexan­drov as­sist­ed in the first au­top­sy which was con­duct­ed by pathol­o­gist by Dr East­lyn Mc Don­ald Bor­ris last Mon­day and which gave the cause of death as drown­ing.A sec­ond au­top­sy, con­duct­ed by Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley, an­oth­er pathol­o­gist at the mor­tu­ary of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Thurs­day, con­clud­ed the child was stran­gled.A third au­top­sy, done by Unit­ed States foren­sic pathol­o­gist Pro­fes­sor James Gill, de­ter­mined Daniel was mur­dered, giv­ing "as­phyx­ia con­sis­tent with homi­cide" as the cause. About Valery Alexan­drov

Dr Valery Alexan­drov was born in Rus­sia in March 1947 and be­came an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen in 1994.In 2007 he served in T&T as a pathol­o­gist un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP), op­er­at­ing at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.He was sub­se­quent­ly in­vit­ed back by T&T to work here.Pri­or to that, he worked in the state of Michi­gan in pri­vate prac­tice as an in­de­pen­dent foren­sic pathol­o­gist/con­sul­tant.Alexan­drov has a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence, in­clud­ing work­ing in sev­er­al Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, in­clud­ing Ger­many and Italy.

He is trained in pathol­o­gy, foren­sic pathol­o­gy, foren­sic is­sues in war crimes and tor­ture in­ves­ti­ga­tions, foren­sic and so­mat­ic au­top­sies, anatom­ic pathol­o­gy and tox­i­col­o­gy.In 1987, Alexan­drov was a mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion (USSR, Ger­many, Poland, and Swe­den) in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mass ex­e­cu­tions of vic­tims of Joseph Stal­in's purges and var­i­ous oth­er crimes against hu­man­i­ty.Daniel Guer­ra is just the lat­est young mur­der vic­tim whose bru­tal end has prompt­ed a na­tion­al out­pour­ing of grief and out­rage. Some of the cas­es are still un­solved.

Here is a look back at some of those cas­es:

Sean Luke

Bug­gered to death: The body of lit­tle Sean Luke was found in a cane­field near his home at Or­ange Val­ley, Cou­va, on March 28, 2006. The six-year-old, a Unit­ed States cit­i­zen, would have felt no fear, smil­ing and laugh­ing with the preda­tor un­til he was stripped of his cloth­ing and killed in a most ag­o­nis­ing way.Pathol­o­gist Dr East­lyn Mc Don­ald Bur­ris found, dur­ing a pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion, the killer in­sert­ed a sug­ar­cane stalk in­to the boy's rec­tum, and pushed it un­til it reached the child's throat.His in­testines were rup­tured and oth­er or­gans dam­aged.

He died from in­ter­nal bleed­ing.

Akeel Mitchell, 17, and Richard Cha­too, 20, have been charged with the boy's bru­tal mur­der.They were 13 and 16 when they were ar­rest­ed.

Tecia Hen­ry

Ten-year-old Tecia Hen­ry went miss­ing on June 12, 2009, and was found dead in a hole be­neath a house in Plai­sance Ter­race, Laven­tille.Her part­ly de­com­posed corpse was found by a Cepep crew about four days af­ter she went miss­ing. An au­top­sy re­vealed the child was stran­gled. Re­put­ed leader of Laven­tille's Block Eight gang Ri­car­do "Docks" Mc­Carthy, who was sus­pect­ed of or­der­ing the child's mur­der, was dis­cov­ered shot dead two weeks lat­er. Hen­ry, who lived on Es­sex Street, John John, with her moth­er, Di­ane Hen­ry, and at­tend­ed the St Rose's Girls' Pri­ma­ry School was sent to a near­by par­lour but nev­er re­turned home.

Hope Aris­mendez

The lit­tle girl's bat­tered and bruised body was found in a cane­field in Pe­ters­field, on the out­skirts of Fe­lic­i­ty, on May 29, 2008.Hope, eight, was raped, bug­gered and stabbed to death. Her se­mi-nude body was left on a dirt road in the cane­field, which runs par­al­lel to Pierre Road, Char­lieville. Homi­cide de­tec­tives said there was a stab wound to the anus and a knife was re­cov­ered from the cane­field.Hours be­fore the vic­tim was to be giv­en her fi­nal farewell, her al­leged killer Sunil Ali, 28, slashed both his wrists with a ra­zor blade and hanged him­self with a bed­sheet in his prison cell at the Re­mand Yard, Gold­en Grove Prison, Arou­ca.

In­mates in cells near­by raised an alarm and Ali was found by pris­ons of­fi­cers hang­ing from the ven­ti­la­tion blocks of his num­ber sev­en cell, lo­cat­ed at the Top Se­cu­ri­ty Block on the east­ern side of the Re­mand Yard.

Akiel Cham­bers

Akiel Cham­bers, 11, was found float­ing in a pool at the home of Charles and An­nelore James at Hale­land Park, Mar­aval, on May 24, 1998.No one saw Akiel get in­to the pool but when his body mys­te­ri­ous­ly sur­faced the fol­low­ing day, he was wear­ing a man's swim­ming trunks.An au­top­sy proved the boy was a vic­tim of sex­u­al as­sault.