Ralph Ban­warie

The body of 63-year-old ex-fire­man and join­er Anslym Alon­zo was dis­cov­ered in a bushy area at Pe­ter­son Trace, De Gannes Road, off Lit­tle Co­ra Road, Cu­mu­to, on Mon­day evening.

Po­lice said Alon­zo’s hands were tied be­hind his back and his mouth gagged. He ap­peared to have been shot in the head.

A vil­lager who found the body alert­ed of­fi­cers at the Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion. Po­lice lat­er vis­it­ed the scene with homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion 2.

Rel­a­tives who rushed to the scene were able to iden­ti­fy Alon­zo, who lived at Du­ran­ta Gar­dens, Gra­ham Street, San­gre Grande. He was last seen around 2 p.m. on Fri­day when he left home to go to his work­shop at Cyp Av­enue, Bark­er Trace, Coalmine, San­gre Grande.

A neigh­bour re­port­ed hear­ing him work­ing around 4 p.m. but lat­er found the work­shop door open, with tools scat­tered and Alon­zo and his ve­hi­cle miss­ing. Con­cerned rel­a­tives filed a miss­ing per­son’s re­port at the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion that evening af­ter re­peat­ed calls to his phone went unan­swered.

Mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team joined rel­a­tives and neigh­bours in an ex­ten­sive search over the week­end, but he was not found un­til Mon­day.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve Alon­zo may have been ab­duct­ed, though a mo­tive is yet to be es­tab­lished. Vil­lagers re­port­ed see­ing two men leav­ing the area in his ve­hi­cle. Po­lice are re­view­ing CCTV footage as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

Alon­zo was de­scribed by res­i­dents of San­gre Grande as a qui­et, hum­ble and well-re­spect­ed man.