Golconda woman identified as body found floating off Tobago beach

The body which washed ashore at Hope, To­ba­go, on Tues­day has been iden­ti­fied as that of Trinidad res­i­dent Sta­cy Sama­roo.

Sama­roo, 36, of Gol­con­da Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, had re­port­ed­ly been va­ca­tion­ing in To­ba­go be­fore she dis­ap­peared. She was iden­ti­fied for the po­lice by her moth­er via sev­er­al tat­toos she had on parts of her body. The woman's moth­er trav­elled to the is­land af­ter hear­ing re­ports of the in­ci­dent in Hope on Tues­day.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, around 3 pm on Tues­day, of­fi­cers were on pa­trol along Wind­ward Road, Mt St George, when they were alert­ed by res­i­dents.

The in­ci­dent caused a com­mo­tion, as peo­ple be­gan gath­er­ing as the body be­gan drift­ing to­wards the shore­line. The body was re­trieved from the sea and po­lice con­firmed marks of vi­o­lence were ob­served.

DMO Dr Ariel­la Camp­bell vis­it­ed the scene and or­dered the body's re­moval to the Scar­bor­ough Mor­tu­ary pend­ing a foren­sic au­top­sy.

A man who was work­ing near­by told Guardian Me­dia he as­sist­ed in pulling the body ashore.

"The place was crawl­ing with peo­ple al­ready," An­tho­ny Mar­cano said.

"When it washed up on shore, a man come and ask if I could give him a hand. He give me a gloves and tell me help him pull the body up away from the waves."

Mar­cano said a rope was tied around the woman's neck.

"It looked kin­da scary. It is some­thing I was very scep­ti­cal about. First time I come across that kin­da thing. I walk away be­cause I start to feel un­com­fort­able."

Homi­cide bu­reau is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

The in­ci­dent is ex­pect­ed to be clas­si­fied as the sec­ond mur­der in To­ba­go for 2026.

On Mon­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called a fresh State of Emer­gency (SoE), cit­ing a rise in gang vi­o­lence and mur­ders since the ex­pi­ra­tion of the pre­vi­ous SoE in Jan­u­ary.

How­ev­er, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly said the is­land was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing low lev­els of se­ri­ous crime and gang vi­o­lence. It en­cour­aged res­i­dents and vis­i­tors to go about their nor­mal rou­tines, stay vig­i­lant and com­ply with in­struc­tions from the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.