Orange Valley villagers: 'Keep Sean Luke killers behind bars'

The gruesome murder of six-year-old Sean Luke which shocked the nation 15 years ago is still very much real in his hometown and nobody there wants his killers to ever be released from prison.

To date, residents in Orange Valley, Couva, have neither forgotten the horrifying incident nor forgiven the killers.

"This is a close-knitted fishing community. Everyone here is family. Sean would have turned 22 this year on August 17," villager Savita Moonilal told Sunday Newsday.

"We did not only lose a member of the community; we lost a family member. What could a six-year-old possibly do to trigger such a monstrous act,"

Moonilal, 42, is also Sean’s cousin and lives on Henry Street West near the abandoned canefield where his body was found on March 28, 2006.

Sean went missing on the evening of March 26, 2006. He was buggered, sodomised with a cane stalk which ruptured his internal organs which caused his death. Two days later, on March 28, his body was found in the canefield near his home.

Sean was the last of three now-adult children of Pauline Bharat, 58.

On Friday, Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds found Richard Chatoo, 31, and Akeel Mitchell, 29, guilty of the murder in the first ever live streamed sentences shared publicly on the Judiciary's website. Chatoo was 16, and Mitchell, 13, when they were charged. The two opted for a judge alone trial which took place with the prisoners viewing from a special room at prison, prosecutors and defence attorneys at their respective offices and judge presiding from her home owing to the restrictions in place by the Judiciary during the pandemic.

The judge has fixed August 23 for sentencing and the prisoners are likely to be sentenced at the court’s pleasure with a minimum sentence and periods of review fixed by the judge.

The death penalty cannot be imposed on those who were minors when they committed a crime and the judge said the law was clear, advising people not to clamour for the death penalty.

The State’s case was based primarily on circumstantial evidence, and the testimony of two other boys who said they last saw Luke enter the canefield, where his body was found, with Mitchell and Chatoo; the DNA evidence from the sperm fraction pointing to Mitchell; and the boy’s body found sodomised with a cane stalk, approximately 12 joints long, as described by Chatoo in his statement to the police.

Mitchell’s DNA profile was found on Luke’s underwear, but none of Chatoo’s was found on either Luke’s clothing or the piece of cane stalk.

Both men denied killing Luke. Mitchell raised an alibi and Chatoo alleged the statements he gave to the police, in which he implicated himself and Mitchell, were fabricated by the police and adduced as a result of oppression, trickery, force and inducement.

After the verdict on Friday, Luke's mother said she received no justice, no joy and no real closure.

Bharat said her son's killers did not realise "it still have another place that they have to face. Even though they faced (judgement) here, whatever happens...this is man's law..." but the judgement awaiting them "is worse than this one."

"It's not over for me. It is not going to be over for me, until I reach on the other side...where I can finally hug my son and kiss him...and have that joy that the Most High said you would get that joy.

"That is what I am waiting for. I am waiting for that day," she said in an interview with Newsday.

Like many other residents, Moonilal said the guilty verdict does not mean justice was served.

"For me, it is not justice because it cannot bring Sean back to life. It is a form of closure. Of course, we do not ever want them back in this area. They are living on taxpayers’ money. We do not know their state of mind. We do not know if they would be worse than before," Moonilal said.

Many residents called for the two convicted killers to "remain in jail and rot."

"The hairs on my hands are raising, just talking about Sean. He was a bright child. My grandmother is from the street where he lived. I was part of the search team when he went missing. To me, the whole village was searching," villager Shivan Sooklal said.

Another villager, Boohal Ramkissoon, said from March 2006 to the present, he cries from time to time thinking about Luke.

Ramkissoon said, "I still cry for that child and for what he went through. Them fellas (killers) should remain right where they are because if they come out, they might do the same thing again."

Residents said the convicted killers were from Laventille and moved into the area a few years before the murder. Mitchell is said to be the nephew of Chatoo's stepfather. At the time of the murder, they lived in the same wooden house.

The family moved out of the area weeks after police arrested the two. They never returned.

The property was sold. The new owner demolished the house and built a concrete one. He died earlier this year, residents say.

One resident said after police arrested Chatoo and Mitchell, the family kept to themselves. The uproar by residents may have forced them out of the community "for good."

There were also reports that residents made threats to the convicted men’s family.

A resident recalled Chatoo making a sexual, offensive comment to a 13-year-old girl who became so traumatised that her father transferred her to another school.

Many residents said they could not forgive the killers and expressed concern about the length of time between the crime and the verdict.

"They already served 15 years in jail, so we do not know how many more they would get. The villagers here are nice people who know one another. If I tell you what I want to happen to them, you will not print that," one man said.