KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice have launched a homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter the bad­ly burnt body of a man was dis­cov­ered near a torched ve­hi­cle along Rail­way Road, Re­form, Ste Madeleine, yes­ter­day.

The dis­cov­ery was made short­ly af­ter 6.30 am, when of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a re­port of a burnt body in the area. It comes just days af­ter an­oth­er body was found along Re­form Road in a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent now un­der po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

In that case, the vic­tim was found with gun­shot in­juries, height­en­ing con­cerns about vi­o­lent crime in the com­mu­ni­ty. Po­lice have not in­di­cat­ed whether the two in­ci­dents are linked.

In the lat­est in­ci­dent, re­spond­ing po­lice of­fi­cers found a ve­hi­cle, make and reg­is­tra­tion un­known, com­plete­ly de­stroyed by fire. The charred re­mains of a man were ly­ing on the road­way about two feet away from the ve­hi­cle.

The man, who has not yet been iden­ti­fied, was pro­nounced dead at the scene by a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer. His body was lat­er re­moved, pend­ing a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, to de­ter­mine the cause of death.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the de­ceased ap­peared to be male and was par­tial­ly clothed, with se­vere burn in­juries to the up­per body. His iden­ti­ty, age, and na­tion­al­i­ty re­main un­known.

Of­fi­cers cor­doned off the area as homi­cide de­tec­tives and crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors processed the scene. The burnt ve­hi­cle was re­moved and tak­en to the Ste Madeleine Po­lice Sta­tion for fur­ther foren­sic ex­am­i­na­tion.

Po­lice have not in­di­cat­ed whether the vic­tim died as a re­sult of the fire or sus­tained in­juries pri­or to the blaze, and are treat­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death as sus­pi­cious.

En­quiries are con­tin­u­ing as in­ves­ti­ga­tors work to iden­ti­fy the vic­tim and de­ter­mine how he came to be at the lo­ca­tion.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion that may as­sist po­lice is urged to con­tact the Ste Madeleine Po­lice Sta­tion or Crime Stop­pers.