RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat
@guardian.co.tt

A body of a man was found in Aripo, par­tial­ly wrapped in a sheet. The head was cov­ered in a plas­tic bag and there was a gun­shot wound to the ab­domen.

A po­lice re­port stat­ed that around 10.30 am on Thurs­day, a farmer found the body at Smith­field Road. He said while head­ing to his gar­den, he was alert­ed by an­oth­er farmer about a sus­pi­cious track lead­ing to his mel­on field.

Up­on in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the farmer dis­cov­ered the legs be­long­ing to a hu­man body in a shal­low pond along the road and im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed the Va­len­cia Po­lice Post. Ac­cord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, the de­ceased was said to be a 21-year-old man from Bal­isi­er Road, Smith Lands, Aripo, Ari­ma.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer (DMO) was called to the scene, where the body was re­trieved from the pond and ex­am­ined. The male body, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5 feet 8 inch­es in height with a dark brown com­plex­ion, was found in a state of ear­ly de­com­po­si­tion. It was clad on­ly in black un­der­wear pulled down to the feet, with a sheet wrapped around the waist, and the head cov­ered in a plas­tic bag se­cured with sil­ver duct tape. A gun­shot wound to the stom­ach was not­ed, along with a tat­too bear­ing the name “Al­isha” on the left fore­arm.

Ini­tial re­ports sug­gest that the de­ceased was dropped off at his res­i­dence by his moth­er around 7.30 pm on Tues­day. Con­cerned af­ter be­ing un­able to reach him the fol­low­ing morn­ing, she vis­it­ed the house at 5.30 am on Wednes­day and found it un­se­cured.

In­side, she dis­cov­ered an over­turned three-seater couch, which her son typ­i­cal­ly slept on, and what ap­peared to be blood stains on the floor and walls. De­spite search­ing the premis­es, she could not lo­cate him.

The DMO or­dered the re­moval of the body for a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre. The Spe­cial Ev­i­dence Re­sponse Unit (SERU) processed the scene, col­lect­ing sev­er­al items of ev­i­den­tial val­ue, in­clud­ing pho­tographs. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing as au­thor­i­ties seek to de­ter­mine the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing this trag­ic in­ci­dent.