WPC murder plot thickens

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

The Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions has giv­en in­struc­tions to charge a 28-year-old po­lice of­fi­cer in con­nec­tion with the mur­der of Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Cor­po­ral Anusha Ever­s­ley, as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­ten­si­fy in­to her killing and the dis­ap­pear­ance of a large quan­ti­ty of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion from the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion.

The of­fi­cer is fac­ing charges of was charged yes­ter­day with mur­der, traf­fick­ing of firearms, pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion and rob­bery with vi­o­lence.

How­ev­er, while DPP Roger Gas­pard gave the ad­vice yes­ter­day, in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers said it was un­like­ly he would have been charged im­me­di­ate­ly. This is be­cause the of­fi­cers un­cov­ered ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion which must be ver­i­fied be­fore go­ing for­ward with the charges.

Mean­while, five of­fi­cers at­tached to Ever­s­ley’s sta­tion have now been sus­pend­ed as the probe in­ten­si­fies. Among those sus­pend­ed are an act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent who was in charge of the sta­tion at the time of the in­ci­dent, two of­fi­cers who were al­leged­ly sleep­ing when the crimes oc­curred and two fe­male of­fi­cers who were at an­oth­er lo­ca­tion.

ACP Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, head of the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, has al­so been sent on leave dur­ing the probe.

Ever­s­ley, 42, was dis­cov­ered dead at the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Head­quar­ters, La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, around 4.40 am on Sun­day. She was a moth­er of three chil­dren, aged 18, 15 and sev­en, and had over 19 years of ser­vice. An au­top­sy re­vealed she was beat­en and stran­gled to death.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has stat­ed that in­ves­ti­ga­tions were be­ing strate­gi­cal­ly led by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, DCP Natasha George, ACP Richard Smith and Snr Supt Sean Dhill­paul, while the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing su­per­vised by Supt Per­sad and mem­bers of Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion Three.

Com­ment­ing on the in­ves­ti­ga­tions yes­ter­day, the CoP said, “The swift and metic­u­lous work of our in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­flects the stan­dard of pro­fes­sion­al­ism the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice de­mand of it­self.”

Al­though Gue­var­ro has not dis­closed the ex­act num­ber of weapons stolen, po­lice sources con­firm that more than 100 firearms were stolen from the sta­tion’s ar­moury. So far, the TTPS has re­cov­ered 43 firearms and more than 900 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion. Mean­while, a $100,000 re­ward is be­ing of­fered by Crime Stop­pers of Trinidad and To­ba­go for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to ar­rests in the mur­der case, along with a $5,000 re­ward for the re­cov­ery of each stolen firearm.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day, there was no height­ened po­lice pres­ence in the yard. An of­fi­cer, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said the sta­tion is func­tion­ing but struc­tur­al changes were tak­ing place.

Guardian Me­dia al­so re­turned to So­phie Trace in Clax­ton Bay, the ac­cused of­fi­cer’s home­town, where a rel­a­tive de­scribed the de­vel­op­ment as deeply trou­bling.

Res­i­dents, mean­while, said they were still in dis­be­lief. They said the of­fi­cer and his fam­i­ly moved in­to the neigh­bour­hood more than five years ago and were rent­ing in an apart­ment build­ing.

“I nev­er know him to be a bad fel­la. I was sur­prised about what hap­pened,” a res­i­dent said.

He re­called that on Sun­day, he was on the main road when he saw six po­lice ve­hi­cles turn in­to the street, and that was when he re­alised some­thing was hap­pen­ing. He said not long af­ter he saw the re­port on so­cial me­dia.

“Every­body was shocked in the neigh­bour­hood.”

While the po­lice act­ed swift­ly to re­cov­er some of the weapons, he said, “It have the peo­ple feel­ing not safe be­cause you don’t know who is crim­i­nal, if is the po­lice, you don’t know.”

Not­ing that the in­ci­dent has deep­ened the pub­lic’s lack of trust in the po­lice, he said, the po­lice hi­er­ar­chy “have to do bet­ter.”

ASP Ma­haraj is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.