Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The dis­cov­ery of a woman’s body in an aban­doned lot of land in Carlsen Field has reignit­ed fears among res­i­dents and farm­ers that their com­mu­ni­ty is be­ing used as a dump­ing ground for mur­der­ers.

The woman–20-year-old Sa­van­na Dy­er–was found on Xeres Road, by of­fi­cers of the TTPS Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad at around 7.10 am yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said Dy­er’s body bore marks of vi­o­lence. They sus­pect that she was mur­dered else­where and dumped at the lo­ca­tion.

Sources said the mat­ter was be­ing treat­ed as a “sus­pect­ed homi­cide”.

Months ear­li­er on April 18, 30-year-old Odelle Lal­man-Bap­tiste, was kid­napped at gun­point by men in a black Nis­san X-Trail on Hos­pi­tal Road, Carlsen Field.

Lal­man-Bap­tiste’s hus­band, Matthias Bap­tiste, stopped the car to uri­nate when they were con­front­ed by the at­tack­ers.

Her body was dumped a short dis­tance away from the scene of the kid­nap­ping.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Carlsen Field res­i­dent and farmer Shi­raz Khan said the sense of un­ease and frus­tra­tion over crime was clear among fel­low res­i­dents who were con­cerned that their com­mu­ni­ty had earned the rep­u­ta­tion of be­ing a dump­ing ground for bod­ies.

Khan, who was al­so the vic­tim of a home in­va­sion last March, said while po­lice in­creased pa­trols in the wake of a spate of rob­beries and oth­er crimes last year, the pres­ence grad­u­al­ly dwin­dled over time.

He said Dy­er’s mur­der was un­for­tu­nate, but felt it was the lat­est in­ci­dent in a se­ries of is­sues sur­round­ing se­cu­ri­ty in the agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“We had about five in­ci­dents that have tak­en place in Carlsen Field but they aren’t linked to Carlsen Field res­i­dents. If this doesn’t war­rant some kind of se­ri­ous re­sponse from the po­lice then some­thing is fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong.

“Look to­day (Sat­ur­day) we have a mur­der and we’re still no clos­er to get­ting any kind of re­lief for the se­cu­ri­ty here.”

Re­fer­ring to the sprawl­ing farm­land and large bush­es on ei­ther side of the road in some parts of the com­mu­ni­ty, Khan said the preva­lence of crime was di­rect­ly tied to is­sues of in­fra­struc­ture in the area.

He said with lim­it­ed light­ing and poor road con­di­tions in some ar­eas which can de­ter mo­bile pa­trols from po­lice, the area was ide­al for crim­i­nals who sought to use the area to con­ceal their ac­tiv­i­ties.

“We have a lot of street lights that are not work­ing. There are a lot of small things that are hap­pen­ing that is con­tribut­ing to the se­cu­ri­ty prob­lems we’re fac­ing.

“Some of the roads are ter­ri­ble, even the po­lice some­times don’t want to go there be­cause the roads are so bad.”

And while he ac­knowl­edged the po­lice had a role to play in se­cur­ing the com­mu­ni­ty, he said oth­er stake­hold­ers at the lev­el of lo­cal gov­ern­ment should al­so get in­volved and work with res­i­dents in en­sur­ing it was pro­tect­ed and con­nect­ed.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment head of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team of vol­un­teers Cap­tain Val­lance Ramb­harat said he and his team has seen first-hand the con­di­tions de­scribed by the res­i­dents and agreed that bet­ter light­ing would go a long way to­wards se­cur­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We’ve con­duct­ed sev­er­al search­es for miss­ing peo­ple in the Carlsen Field area and what the res­i­dents are say­ing is very true, be­cause there are ar­eas that is very dark and can do with some light­ing.

“We our­selves when we have to go through lone­ly roads es­pe­cial­ly when dusk ap­proach­es, we have to use our head­lamps so it is risky, you can imag­ine how dan­ger­ous it is for res­i­dents.”

Po­lice promise re­newed crime-fight­ing ef­fort in Carlsen Field

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp yes­ter­day ACP South-Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar said the po­lice were treat­ing the mat­ter with the “high­est im­por­tance”, and ap­pealed to any­one with in­for­ma­tion to re­port what they knew to the po­lice.

He not­ed the con­cerns of res­i­dents and said there would be a re­newed po­lice re­sponse at dif­fer­ent lev­els–from crime-sup­pres­sion ex­er­cis­es to com­mu­ni­ty out­reach and even part­ner­ship with oth­er bod­ies.

“I have man­dat­ed the im­me­di­ate roll-out of in­creased mo­bile pa­trols in vul­ner­a­ble zones with­in Carlsen Field, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing ear­ly morn­ing and late-night hours.

“We will have com­mu­ni­ty out­reach ex­er­cis­es to en­gage res­i­dents and raise aware­ness on per­son­al safe­ty, sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty re­port­ing and crime-pre­ven­tion strate­gies and col­lab­o­ra­tion with lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies to en­hance light­ing, in­fra­struc­ture in poor­ly lit ar­eas and the in­stal­la­tion of sur­veil­lance cam­eras there­by re­duc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for crim­i­nal con­ceal­ment.”

It was spec­u­lat­ed by some that Dy­er, who was from Tem­ple Street, Diego Mar­tin, was lim­ing with friends short­ly be­fore the at­tack, as videos post­ed to her so­cial me­dia showed that she ap­peared to be wear­ing the same cloth­ing she was found in.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Riv­er Es­tate, off St Lu­cien Road, Diego Mar­tin, yes­ter­day and was told by a rel­a­tive that Dy­er was a “friend­ly, warm” young woman who lived her life to the fullest.

The rel­a­tive, who asked not to be named, said she last saw Dy­er last Wednes­day where they spoke briefly about her ex­pec­ta­tions for the fu­ture.

She said one of her daugh­ters, who was par­tic­u­lar­ly close to Dy­er, told her about the dis­cov­ery of her mur­der, as pho­tos of her body were cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia.

“My pores still raised right now when I think about it. The whole fam­i­ly is tak­ing it hard be­cause we saw here in front of our face al­most every day. All I can say is the dev­il busy right now. I have three daugh­ters and I warn them every day about this world we liv­ing in.”

The rel­a­tive lament­ed that young women should be vig­i­lant and take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions when go­ing out, even with oth­er fe­male friends.

When asked what she would say to Dy­er’s killers, the rel­a­tive said she would leave their judge­ment to God.

“It have a God. That’s all I would tell them.”

BOX

Re­cent crimes in Carlsen Field

￭ On May 26, a 31-year-old man was shot and a 27-year-old woman was pis­tol-whipped when they were con­front­ed by ban­dits as they stopped on Mar­shall Road, Carlsen Field.

The ban­dits stole the cou­ple’s Maz­da 323 van.

￭ On April 18, reg­is­tered nurse Odelle Lal­man-Bap­tiste, 30, was trav­el­ling with her hus­band, Matthias Bap­tiste, on Hos­pi­tal Road, Carlsen Field, when a black Nis­san X-Trail drove near them.

Gun­men got out of the X-Trail and kid­napped Lal­man-Bap­tiste.

Her body was found a short dis­tance away.

￭ On Ju­ly 8, 2024, 27-year-old Christo­pher Chris­t­ian was killed when he strug­gled with ban­dits who shot him in his chest dur­ing what po­lice de­scribed as a failed home in­va­sion.

Chris­t­ian’s fa­ther, Matthew Perez-Chris­t­ian, was al­so at home at the time of the in­ci­dent.