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Friday, February 14, 2025

Cops probe shooting death of teen in forest

by

20140803

An 18-year-old boy who could not bear the thought of los­ing his prized hunt­ing dogs end­ed up los­ing his own life af­ter he was shot while search­ing a forest­ed area in San­ta Cruz for his four-legged friends.Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 6 pm on Sat­ur­day, Kyle Thomas and his 16-year-old friend An­der­son Bap­tiste were walk­ing with his hunt­ing dogs Queen and Thun­der in a forest­ed area off San­ta Cruz Old Road in San­ta Cruz.The dogs re­port­ed­ly ven­tured off the path, forc­ing the teenagers to chase af­ter them.

Bap­tiste told po­lice that up­on reach­ing a dense­ly-forest­ed area he was sep­a­rat­ed from Thomas and he on­ly be­gan look­ing for him when he heard a gun­shot in the dis­tance.When his search proved fu­tile, Bap­tiste made his way out of the for­est and called the po­lice.Of­fi­cers from the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (NEDTF) led by Sgt Cor­nelius Samuel re­spond­ed to the scene and ac­com­pa­nied Bap­tiste to the forest­ed area to search for his friend.

Af­ter sev­er­al hours of search­ing, Thomas's body was found. Thomas had a gun­shot wound be­low his waist. The two dogs were even­tu­al­ly found and hand­ed over to Thomas' un­cle who as­sist­ed him in rais­ing them.In­ves­ti­ga­tors ini­tial­ly be­lieved that Thomas was shot by a trap gun used by il­le­gal poach­ers but no weapon was found when po­lice searched the blood-stained path used by a wound­ed Thomas be­fore he col­lapsed.

"By all in­di­ca­tions it was not a trap gun. We are work­ing on the the­o­ry that he stum­bled on a mar­i­jua­na plan­ta­tion and was shot by a man guard­ing it," a source close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion said. No one was ar­rest­ed up to late yes­ter­day.Speak­ing with a news team from the T&T Guardian at his Ass­ing Trace, Grand Cu­ra­caye Road, San Juan, home, Thomas' aunt de­scribed the for­mer stu­dent of San Juan North Sec­ondary School as a avid hunter and out­doors­man.

"He could go in the bush for days. That was a big part of his life," his aunt, who asked to re­main uniden­ti­fied said.She said since En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh had in­sti­tut­ed a two-year hunt­ing ban in Oc­to­ber, last year, her nephew would oc­ca­sion­al­ly car­ry the dogs for long walks when they be­came rest­less. "He re­al like to take care of the dogs and they had loved him too," Thomas' aunt said.

Thomas' friend and fel­low hunter, who was at the fam­i­ly's home and on­ly iden­ti­fied him­self as Nathaniel, said the teenag­er was a loy­al friend and skilled hunter."Those dogs are A-class. That's one of the few things a hunter will­ing to die for," Nathaniel said.Thomas' body was tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James where an au­top­sy will be done to­day.


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