Kidnap victims being kept in ‘protective custody’

As the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the kid­nap­ping of Der­rick “Stones” Tardieu and his wife Clara­belle deep­ens, law en­force­ment agen­cies have con­tin­ued to keep the cou­ple se­cret­ed away from the pub­lic.

A se­nior T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) of­fi­cial yes­ter­day con­firmed, “Yes, they are in pro­tec­tive cus­tody.”

Asked if they had been able to de­brief Clara­belle Tardieu fol­low­ing her re­lease by her ab­duc­tors on Thurs­day, the po­lice of­fi­cial re­spond­ed, “Yes, we have been able to speak with her and we have ob­tained state­ments. Our in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been ex­pand­ed to in­clude the in­for­ma­tion we have re­ceived.”

The of­fi­cial in­sist­ed that all law en­force­ment agen­cies, “con­tin­ue to be hap­py and re­lieved she was re­turned safe­ly.”

Rel­a­tives in­di­cat­ed on Thurs­day and yes­ter­day that they had not spo­ken to ei­ther of them since Clara­belle was found on Thurs­day at a vend­ing stall at one of the look-out points along the North Coast Road lead­ing to Mara­cas Beach.

Guardian Me­dia was told that the cou­ple was “en­joy­ing be­ing alive and be­ing back to­geth­er.”

Clara­belle, 47, and her 70-year-old hus­band were tak­en by armed men from their home at Blanchette Bay, Monos Is­land, on De­cem­ber 6, 2025.

Al­though Der­rick Tardieu was re­leased by kid­nap­pers on De­cem­ber 17, 2025, af­ter a ran­som was paid by rel­a­tives, his wife had re­mained in the hands of their ab­duc­tors. She was re­leased one month and a day af­ter they were kid­napped.

Much like her hus­band’s re­lease, which took place in the ear­ly hours of De­cem­ber 17, Clara­belle was re­leased around 3 am on Thurs­day. She was tak­en to the ven­dor’s shed at the look­out point and in­struct­ed to re­main there while a call was made to the au­thor­i­ties, in­form­ing them of her where­abouts.

When po­lice found her, Tardieu’s hands and feet had been bound and her face was cov­ered, but she was un­harmed oth­er­wise.

While a ran­som was paid for her safe re­turn, po­lice of­fi­cials have re­fused to say ex­act­ly how much was hand­ed over to her ab­duc­tors.

An al­most $200,000 ran­som, com­pris­ing TT$150,000 and US$5,000 was re­port­ed­ly paid for Der­rick Tardieu’s re­lease.