TTPS investigates unlawful disposal of 56 bodies at Cumuto

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has launched an ur­gent in­ves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of mul­ti­ple hu­man re­mains at the Cu­mu­to Ceme­tery to­day.

Of­fi­cers from the Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed to in­for­ma­tion re­ceived and se­cured the lo­ca­tion, while Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors car­ried out a de­tailed foren­sic ex­am­i­na­tion.

Po­lice said 56 bod­ies have been re­cov­ered so far, in­clud­ing 50 in­fants, four adult males and two adult fe­males. In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­port­ed that one of the adult males and one of the adult fe­males showed signs of a pri­or post-mortem. All adult re­mains, ex­cept one male, were found with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tags.

Pre­lim­i­nary find­ings sug­gest the case may in­volve the un­law­ful dis­pos­al of un­claimed corpses. How­ev­er, po­lice said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains ac­tive, with fur­ther foren­sic analy­sis un­der­way to de­ter­mine the ori­gin of the re­mains and whether any laws or pro­ce­dures were breached.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has di­rect­ed that the mat­ter be treat­ed with the high­est lev­el of pri­or­i­ty and over­sight.

“The na­ture of this dis­cov­ery is deeply trou­bling, and we un­der­stand the emo­tion­al im­pact it will have on fam­i­lies and the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. The TTPS is ap­proach­ing this mat­ter with ur­gency, sen­si­tiv­i­ty, and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to un­cov­er­ing the truth. Every ca­dav­er must be han­dled with dig­ni­ty and law­ful care. Any in­di­vid­ual or in­sti­tu­tion found to have vi­o­lat­ed that du­ty will be held ful­ly ac­count­able,” Gue­var­ro said.

Spe­cialised units, in­clud­ing the Homi­cide Bu­reau and of­fi­cers at­tached to the North­ern Di­vi­sion North, are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Sher­ma May­nard-Wil­son and ASP Bale­wa.

Po­lice ac­knowl­edged pub­lic con­cern and urged calm as in­ves­ti­ga­tors work to ver­i­fy facts and es­tab­lish re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Au­thor­i­ties said they will pro­vide up­dates as con­firmed in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic with rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion are en­cour­aged to con­tact the TTPS through its es­tab­lished chan­nels.