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Thursday, July 17, 2025

Tobago left stunned as woman set on fire, killed

by

Elizabeth Gonzales
575 days ago
20231220

ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go po­lice sus­pect a do­mes­tic dis­pute may have been the mo­tive be­hind the mur­der of 40-year-old Janelle Thomas of Sig­nal Hill, who was doused with gaso­line and set on fire in Mt Irvine yes­ter­day morn­ing.

A man is in po­lice cus­tody in con­nec­tion with the killing.

A se­nior of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia that the man first walked in­to the Shir­van Po­lice Sta­tion, just be­fore dawn, to re­port he had dis­cov­ered a body. He then led po­lice to the scene at Glen Ea­gles Dri­ve, Mt Irvine, where po­lice found Thomas with her feet bound ly­ing in a drain.

Po­lice de­tained the man soon af­ter they no­ticed some dis­crep­an­cies in his sto­ry.

Thomas was pro­nounced dead on the scene and her body was tak­en to the Scar­brough Mor­tu­ary for an au­top­sy.

Her mur­der pushed the is­land’s tal­ly to 11 for 2023. To­ba­go’s mur­der count has now reached a record high in 2023. For the same pe­ri­od in 2022, the is­land record­ed ten mur­ders. The toll has not crossed ten in al­most a decade.

Head of To­ba­go Po­lice Di­vi­sion ACP Col­lis Hazel told Guardian Me­dia it is a sad time for To­ba­go.

He said, “It was a do­mes­tic mur­der, the per­pe­tra­tor has been ar­rest­ed. Like any­thing else, we can­not get in the bed­rooms of peo­ple where these things are hap­pen­ing. It’s very sad­den­ing, how­ev­er, it’s be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. We un­der­stand the woman was doused with fu­el and set ablaze.”

At Thomas’s home, her moth­er was too dis­traught to speak. How­ev­er, a rel­a­tive said the or­deal has left loved ones dev­as­tat­ed.

Res­i­dents, who did not want to be named, said they were torn over the news. One woman said she knew Thomas and the al­leged per­pe­tra­tor well.

“I don’t know what hap­pened. I feel she (Thomas) tried to leave and, well, this is how it end­ed.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent said he was left speech­less by the in­ci­dent say­ing Thomas did not de­serve such a trag­ic end.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Sig­nal Hill dis­trict Nigel Taitt said he was try­ing to cope.

“I am al­so griev­ing right now be­cause I know both of them per­son­al­ly. It’s hard and heart­break­ing for me at this time.”

Leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots Wat­son Duke said he was wor­ried and trau­ma­tised as To­ba­go reached a grim mile­stone in its mur­der rate.

“It is a loss-for-loss sit­u­a­tion. No­body wins. The vic­tim is dead, the fam­i­ly is in mourn­ing, per­haps chil­dren are in­volved and the al­leged per­pe­tra­tor has left his fam­i­ly in con­fu­sion. They are wor­ried too about bail and lawyer.

“It calls in­to ques­tion po­lice work. Po­lice work needs to be ac­com­pa­nied by so­cial work­ers. A lot of our prob­lems are prob­lems per­sons are not talk­ing out, so we need these so­cial work­ers to in­fil­trate our so­ci­ety,” Duke said.

Duke said it was time for To­bag­o­ni­ans to learn to thrash is­sues out in a civilised man­ner.

“Mur­der is not an op­tion ... As much as you may be an­gry and wish to make a state­ment that would send chills through so­ci­ety, mur­der is not one of the op­tions. We need to work out and talk out dif­fer­ences.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine could not be reached for com­ment.


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