Casan­dra Thomp­son�Forbes

A Ger­man cou­ple has been hacked to death in To­ba­go. They have been iden­ti­fied as Hu­ber­tus Keil, 74, and Bir­gid Keil, 71.The bod­ies were dis­cov­ered short­ly af­ter 11 am yes­ter­day by a passer­by who called the po­lice.The bod­ies were found ap­prox­i­mate­ly one mile east of the beach, near the mouth of the riv­er at Ba­co­let Bay. There were mul­ti­ple chop wounds about the necks, hands and bod­ies of the cou­ple. They were iden­ti­fied by prop­er­ty man­ag­er Bri­an Abra­ham.

The cou­ple was last seen on Thurs­day, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve that the in­ci­dent may have oc­curred short­ly be­fore the bod­ies were found.The T&T Guardian was told that the Keil's lived alone and have been vis­it­ing To­ba­go an­nu­al­ly for the past 20 years dur­ing the win­ter months, ar­riv­ing on the is­land in the month of Oc­to­ber and leav­ing in March.

Po­lice are yet to as­cer­tain a mo­tive for the killing, since the cou­ples' vil­la was locked and was in a pris­tine con­di­tion. Their per­son­al items in­clud­ing lap­tops and cel­lu­lar phones were al­so in­tact.A res­i­dent of the area where the cou­ple lived, and who did not want to be named, said they were very qui­et peo­ple. The res­i­dent could not un­der­stand the rea­son for the at­tack.

"They were such nice peo­ple, they nev­er trou­ble no­body. They were so frail that if they see you fall down, they would want to help but can't be­cause they are so weak. They didn't de­serve that," the res­i­dent said.An­oth­er res­i­dent told the T&T Guardian that while the in­ci­dent came as a shock­er, there were many in­stances of in­tru­sion in the area, but they would hard­ly get as­sis­tance from the po­lice

"This is a big es­tate and we have many prob­lems with peo­ple com­ing and do­ing what they want. Peo­ple com­ing pick­ing hun­dreds of co­conuts to sell, catch­ing crab at their will, but this is pri­vate land and when you tell them about it, they al­ways threat­en to kill and chop up. Many re­ports were made to the Scar­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tion and some­times they come, some­times they don't, but look at what hap­pen now, peo­ple would be afraid to walk on their own prop­er­ty," the res­i­dent said.

Up to late last night, po­lice had no sus­pects in cus­tody. Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Les­ley Gab­ba or­dered the body re­moved to the Scar­bor­ough Mor­tu­ary.This brings the mur­der toll in To­ba­go to sev­en for 2014. To­ba­go Homi­cide Bu­reau is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

More crime in­fo

Au­gust 2009 was the last time there was a ma­jor in­ci­dent where tourists were at­tacked in To­ba­go. Muri­um and Pe­ter Green were chopped by an as­sailant and left for dead, but luck­i­ly they sur­vived the at­tack. They now live with some phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties. Since the at­tack, they have not re­turned to To­ba­go, and the is­land's Tourism took a nose�dive with nu­mer­ous neg­a­tive trav­el ad­vi­sories.

An Ar­gyle man was ar­rest­ed but was re­leased due to lack of ev­i­dence. The per­pe­tra­tor was nev­er held. The Keil's vil­la is in close prox­im­i­ty to the house where the Green's once lived.

THA re­sponds to dou­ble mur­der

Mean­while, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has con­demned the mur­der of Ger­man na­tion­als Hu­ber­tus and Brigid Keil at Ba­co­let Beach.In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the THA said the cou­ple lived in To­ba­go for the last 15 years and were well known in their com­mu­ni­ty.The THA said the Keils called To­ba­go their home.

"Their deaths come as a shock to all of To­ba­go and the THA be­cause they have oc­curred at a time when To­ba­go's al­ready low crime rate has been fur­ther re­duced in 2014 when com­pared to 2013," the re­lease stat­ed.The re­lease stat­ed that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has al­ready set up a high-lev­el team to pur­sue the in­ves­ti­ga­tion with the aim of bring­ing to jus­tice who­ev­er is re­spon­si­ble for the mur­ders.

The THA ex­tend­ed its deep­est sym­pa­thies to the fam­i­ly and friends of the de­ceased.