3 charged with WPC’s murder

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Three men, in­clud­ing mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer Ji­van Coop­er, have been charged with the mur­der of act­ing Cpl Anus­ka Ever­s­ley at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion on Sun­day.

Con­firm­ing this in a voice note to the me­dia yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said in­ves­ti­ga­tors had been giv­en the go-ahead to lay the charges against the trio by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard.

Al­though of­fi­cers were di­rect­ed by Gas­pard to prof­fer charges against Coop­er, 28, on Tues­day, fresh ev­i­dence re­quir­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion de­layed that process.

Gue­var­ro said the ad­di­tion­al two sus­pects were a 24-year-old scrap-iron deal­er and a 20-year-old con­struc­tion work­er.

The three sus­pects, who are all from the Clax­ton Bay area, have been joint­ly charged with mur­der, rob­bery with vi­o­lence, firearm traf­fick­ing and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion.

Gue­var­ro said, “These charges arise out of co­or­di­nat­ed en­quiries and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions con­duct­ed over the past sev­er­al days dur­ing which 44 firearms, large quan­ti­ties of am­mu­ni­tion and mul­ti­ple mag­a­zines were re­cov­ered at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions across Clax­ton Bay, Gas­par­il­lo, Macaulay and sur­round­ing ar­eas.”

As­sur­ing the na­tion that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was pur­su­ing all re­main­ing leads, the CoP said, “In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­main fo­cused on iden­ti­fy­ing any ad­di­tion­al fa­cil­i­ta­tors, re­cov­er­ing any out­stand­ing firearms and bring­ing every re­spon­si­ble in­di­vid­ual be­fore the courts.”

The po­lice are yet to con­firm ex­act­ly how many firearms, along with am­mu­ni­tion, were stolen dur­ing the brazen act.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing on Mon­day, Gue­var­ro said an au­dit had been un­der­tak­en to de­ter­mine that fig­ure and he would up­date the na­tion as soon as it was known.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the pub­lic’s anx­i­ety and their ex­pec­ta­tions of the TTPS re­gard­ing the out­come of this mat­ter yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro promised, “The TTPS re­mains res­olute in meet­ing that ex­pec­ta­tion.”

Ever­s­ley was found dead at the sta­tion, lo­cat­ed along La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, around 4.40 am on Sun­day. Fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of her bloody and bat­tered body, of­fi­cers were al­so stunned to find all the arms and am­mu­ni­tion miss­ing from the sta­tion’s ar­moury.

Ever­s­ley, 42, was a moth­er of three chil­dren aged 18, 15 and sev­en, with over 19 years ser­vice.

Head of the T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice, ACP Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, was sent on leave fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent. He was re­placed by ACP Wayne Mys­tar on Thurs­day. Five of­fi­cers at­tached to the sta­tion have al­so been sus­pend­ed dur­ing the on­go­ing probe in­to the in­ci­dent.