Man assists police in Tobago teen's murder probe

One man remains in police custody and is assisting in the investigation into Tobago’s ninth murder for 2023, Sgt Joseph Jordan told the Tobago Updates morning show on Monday.

Speaking with Newsday, Supt Rodhil Kirk said that around 3.05 am on Sunday, people at a bar in Crown Point heard gunshots and ran for safety.

He said two people were wounded. Precious Wills, 17, was unresponsive. The two were taken to the Scarborough General Hospital, where Wills died of her injuries.

When Newsday visited Wills's family, they declined to comment.

Jordan said,“We have somebody, a person of interest, who is assisting us and we’re hoping that whatever information is gathered, it would be sufficient to bring the charges against the perpetrator or the perpetrators, as the case may be.

“We are working to ensure that the perpetrator or perpetrators of this senseless incident are brought to justice.”

Murders for the year on the island, he said currently stand at nine. In 2022 there were four for the same period.

But, he said, “One murder in Tobago is too much.”

The other person injured in this incident, he said, is an 18-year-old woman, who is warded at the Scarborough Hospital in a “critical but stable condition.”

A gun, he said, was not designed to wound but to kill.

“The mere possession of a firearm, especially an illegal one, your intention and the law recognises that your intention is to kill another person. This is where we have our challenges in our crime-fighting strategies: people are being unreasonable.”

He said it was not known whether the two teenagers were the intended target, but in any case, it was not the example that should be set in Tobago.

“The fact of this matter is that a gun was used, a shot was fired, someone died and someone is fighting for their life in the hospital. There were people present in the vicinity.”

He called on those who were present to come forward to the police with any information they might have.

“We have a slogan: If you see something, say something. At this point in time, I am pleading with the general public, those who were present at that establishment on Sunday morning, come forward and share the information with the police so that the family, the friends of those young ladies, they can be assured that the matter was resolved, it was solved and the perpetrator or perpetrators are held responsible for that senseless act.”

THA electoral representative for Argyle/ Delaford and political leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) Watson Duke, in a media release, said the island urgently needed a comprehensive crime plan as he lamented the situation.

“We are now in the eighth month of the year, and Tobago is grappling with a rising crime problem, recording nine murders so far.

“This trend is distressing and must be halted.”