Former cyclist found dead in outhouse; police discover house ransacked

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

For years, Den­nis Achargee was a fa­mil­iar face in Quar­ry Road, Siparia: a me­chan­ic, for­mer cy­clist and neigh­bour re­mem­bered by res­i­dents as a qui­et man who would stop to talk and greet those around him.

But on Fri­day, the 62-year-old was found dead in his out­house, prompt­ing a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and leav­ing the com­mu­ni­ty search­ing for an­swers. Achargee lived alone at the wood­en one-room house sur­round­ed by bush in Quar­ry Road, where neigh­bours last saw him on Tues­day. Anil Sam­lal, who lives near­by, said Achargee was known as a friend­ly per­son who was not in­volved in trou­ble.

“Den­nis was a nor­mal per­son. He’d talk and laugh with every­body. Every­body. I ain’t know Den­nis to be no trou­ble­mak­er or any­thing.”

Sam­lal said Achargee worked as a me­chan­ic and peo­ple would of­ten come for his ser­vices.

“If some­body need­ed him, they’d come and pick him up, they’d car­ry him, and bring him back.”

Po­lice said around 10 am on Fri­day, a rel­a­tive went to Achargee’s home and found the front door se­cured with a pad­lock. Af­ter the lock was forced open, the house was found ran­sacked. Po­lice said checks re­vealed that a gas tank, gen­er­a­tor and brush cut­ter were miss­ing.

A search of the prop­er­ty led of­fi­cers to an out­house at the back of the home, where Achargee was found dead with his head and up­per body in­side the la­trine open­ing. He had on on­ly blue three-quar­ter pants.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer vis­it­ed the scene, viewed the body and or­dered its re­moval pend­ing a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James. Rel­a­tives and res­i­dents be­lieve items miss­ing from the home, in­clud­ing Achargee’s brush cut­ter and cook­ing gas tank, sug­gest that foul play may have been in­volved.

His Nis­san B14 mo­tor­car was al­so re­port­ed miss­ing but was lat­er found at Skin­ner Trace, Quar­ry Vil­lage. The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death have un­set­tled res­i­dents, and in­ves­ti­ga­tors are yet to de­ter­mine a pre­lim­i­nary cause of death.

Sam­lal said the in­ci­dent has left him con­cerned be­cause of how close it oc­curred to his own home.

“That is very, too, too, too, very close to home. So that leaves me un­com­fort­able, be­cause I have a wife home too.”

Be­yond his work as a me­chan­ic, Achargee was al­so known in cy­cling cir­cles.

He was part of a gen­er­a­tion of south­ern Trinidad cy­clists as­so­ci­at­ed with the Siparia cy­cling com­mu­ni­ty and trained un­der for­mer Olympian and coach Clive Saney.

Sam­lal said old­er res­i­dents of­ten spoke about Achargee’s cy­cling days.

“Every­body used to say, boy, Den­nis used to ride for the coun­try. He used to be up and down on the road.”

Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Achargee’s death are con­tin­u­ing.