RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice found the body of Venezue­lan na­tion­al Alvin Acos­ta in his Debe apart­ment on Tues­day evening, clas­si­fy­ing his death as a homi­cide even though it was ini­tial­ly re­port­ed as a sui­cide.

Acos­ta was on­ly 23-years-old. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they re­ceived a re­port that a man had com­mit­ted sui­cide. When they ar­rived at 5.40 pm, they met an in­for­mant, who said he left Acos­ta at home at 5 am and went to work. He said when he re­turned at 4.30 pm, he found Acos­ta ly­ing mo­tion­less in his bed­room.

The of­fi­cers went to a room on the east­ern side of apart­ment No. 1, where they found Acos­ta’s body ly­ing face down in a pool of blood, with an ap­par­ent wound to the neck. He was wear­ing blue three-quar­ter pants and no shirt.

The scene was cor­doned off and in­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion Three and Di­vi­sion­al Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors processed the area. A brown-han­dled knife with a bro­ken blade and a blood swab were re­trieved as ev­i­dence. One work­able print was lift­ed from the in­side of the front door.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Ra­j­nar­i­nesingh viewed the body and or­dered its re­moval to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.

An au­top­sy will be done on Thurs­day.

Sev­er­al Venezue­lans have been find­ing it dif­fi­cult to pay rent and sup­port their fam­i­lies. Po­lice said some Venezue­lans have al­so been in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on Acos­ta's death can call Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS.