Slain jeweller is murder #12 for 2017

Police are probing the circumstances surrounding Tobago’s 12th murder for 2017 with the victim identified as Dulalchan Lutchman, also called Roshan, a jeweller originally from Trinidad, but who police say have been living for quite some time in Tobago at Canoe Bay.

Acting Senior Superintendent of Police, Joanne Archie, speaking at the scene of the crime last Friday, said Lutchman’s partly decomposed and “tied” body was discovered in the bathroom on the ground floor of his house in Canoe Bay.

“We received information around 2:30 pm (Friday) about a body in a house. Information received is that there is a man dead, a body tied and partly decomposed. At this time, we cannot say what may have happened or what may be the cause of death as the body is partly decomposed. We are not sure what may have happened there. I am told that the person is a jeweller and we received certain information. Persons visit from time to time, and there is always some dispute, maybe about transactions conducted,” Archie told reporters.

Asked about the spike in murders on the island for this year, Archie called on Tobagonians to speak out on crime.

“I certainly cannot feel good about this because this is quite unusual for Tobago. We just recorded two murders in the last month, …We are continuing to call on the residents when they see something, to say something,” she said.

Tobago recorded six murders in 2016, seven in 2015, eight in 2014 and four in 2013.

Lutchman’s murder follows two murders recorded in November, with no one being held to date by police. On November 18, the island recorded its 11th murder when 28-year-old Richard Ramos Carmona, a barber, of San Juan, who lived at Mason Hall, was found at 1.30 am, shot to death in the driver’s seat of a white Mitsubishi Lancer at Blenheim, Mt St George, by officers on their way to conduct a police exercise in Tobago East. The car engine was still running when officers stumbled upon Carmona body.

Just five days before, on November 13, Tobago’s 10th murder victim, Rondell Campbell (Barry Brown), also of Mason Hall, was shot in the yard of his house, and died while being rushed to the Scarborough General Hospital by friends. According to reports, around 11pm that fateful night, residents heard loud explosions and upon investigating, they found Campbell lying in a pool of blood on the ground in his yard.

Police have held and charged three Trinidadians in connection with the island’s ninth murder - Dave Vincent, 56, originally of San Fernando, Trinidad, who had been living at Les Coteaux for some time. Vincent, who worked as a PH driver, was found slumped in a white Nissan B14 car at a CEPEP park at Buccoo New Road, Golden Grove with several bullet wounds about his body, on October 30.

A murder/suicide rocked Moriah on July 26. Police officers at the Moriah Police Station responded to reports of a man accosting a woman at an URP job site in Moriah. By the time the officers reached the scene, the lifeless body of Romelda King, 51, was lying on the ground with chop wounds. Officers proceeded to the home where King’s husband, Hilton Gordon King, was living at nearby Congo Hill Trace, Moriah, and found him lying on a bed, frothing at the mouth. He subsequently died from ingesting a poisonous substance. Reports are that the couple had a history of domestic abuse, and that Romelda had just the week before, moved out of the marital home, and filed for a divorce from King.

Two months earlier, on May 24, Tobago recorded a double murder when Dexter Providence, 21, of Mt Pleasant, and Auland Peters, originally from El Socorro, Trinidad, but living in Craighall, Tobago for several years, were found with gunshot wounds to the head at around 1 am at Les Coteaux/ Mason Hall Link Road. Police said Providence and Peters were suspects in the robbery hours before at Richmond, and found in a stolen Hyundai Elantra in an area known for the scrapping of stolen vehicles. Providence the same night while undergoing treatment while Peters died the next day.

No one has been held for this murder, nor for the island’s fifth murder on April 8 with the victim Richard Daniel, from Diego Martin in Trinidad, being found shot dead in his bed at his rented apartment in Hope. Daniel was a goods trader, who brought fruit and other food items from Trinidad to supply to retailers and hotels in Tobago.

Perhaps, the most tragic of all murders of the year on the island, was that of 15-year-old female national footballer and student of the Signal Hill Secondary School, Abiela Adams from Mary’s Hill. Adams was found with her

throat slit and partially nude along the roadway, near a pile of garbage, at Solenn Lane, Fidelis Heights (North), Courland on February 11, after she was reported missing on the night of February 10. No one has been arrested in connection with her murder, nor for another February killing, the island’s third murder – a drive-by shooting that took the life of Junior ‘Copper’ Roberts of Buccoo New Road, Buccoo, on February 5. According to reports, Roberts was driving his silver Almera along the Auchenskeoch Road, into Buccoo, when several explosions were heard. Police were called, and Roberts was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Tobago recorded its first murder in the first month of 2017, when Kurt Clarke, 46, also known as ‘Tibbs”, of Clarke Trace, Lambeau, was killed on January 5 while driving his gold Nissan Almera car along Orange Hill Road, Prospect. A black car pulled alongside him, and shots were fired. Clarke was shot in the neck and died in his car. No one has been held to date in his killing. Fourteen days later, on January 19, at 10.30 pm, the island recorded its second murder when Dale ‘Redman’ Boucher was shot in Plymouth, his bullet-riddled body discovered on the roadway by residents who heard the gunfire. Plymouth residents believed Boucher was killed in a turf war over drugs. No one has been held connection with his murder.