A pris­on­er who was on re­mand for the mur­der of a po­lice of­fi­cer was found dead in his cell at the Port-of-Spain Prison on Fred­er­ick Street yes­ter­day.

He has been iden­ti­fied as Kelvin Wal­lace, 35, of Flamin­go Cres­cent, Pleas­antville.

Wal­lace was one of four peo­ple ar­rest­ed in 2013 in con­nec­tion with the mur­der of Po­lice Sergeant Hay­den Man­war­ing, who was re­spond­ing to a rob­bery at Mom’s Din­er on Cipero Street, San Fer­nan­do, on Feb­ru­ary 19 of that year.

He was shot in the ab­domen and lat­er died while in emer­gency surgery.

An­oth­er of­fi­cer was al­so in­jured dur­ing the shoot­ing.

The court case against Wal­lace and the three oth­ers be­gan in Sep­tem­ber 2018, and in 2019, se­nior Mag­is­trate Cher­ril-Anne An­toine found there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence for the mat­ter to be heard be­fore a judge and ju­ry, as she com­mit­ted the men to stand tri­al.

In 2024, he was award­ed $75,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for be­ing beat­en by prison of­fi­cers at Gold­en Grove State Prison in Arou­ca.

Wal­lace claimed that he was in his cell with his fel­low in­mates when a group of prison of­fi­cers ar­rived to con­duct search­es.

He claimed that the of­fi­cers beat him in the cell be­fore tak­ing him to the toi­let area, where they beat him again with their fists and ba­tons.

The of­fi­cers de­nied any wrong­do­ing. They claimed that they were at­tacked by Wal­lace af­ter they found a cell­phone in his be­long­ings, and they de­fend­ed them­selves us­ing rea­son­able force.

Jus­tice Rahim or­dered $40,000 in dam­ages for the pain, suf­fer­ing, and hu­mil­i­a­tion that Wal­lace en­dured. He or­dered $35,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages based on the con­duct of the of­fi­cers and or­dered the State to pay his le­gal costs for the law­suit.

The Prison Ser­vice is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Wal­lace’s death.

—Carisa Lee