Yvonne Webb

The po­lice search for child sex preda­tor Franklyn Chea Cal­len­der end­ed yes­ter­day when he was found hang­ing by his neck from a rope tied to a man­go tree near Ceme­tery Street, Princes Town.

Po­lice found, strapped to his stom­ach, a lap­top which is be­lieved to con­tain more pic­tures of him en­gag­ing in sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty with chil­dren.

Mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice Cy­ber Crimes Unit were said to be go­ing through the com­put­er "with a fine-tooth comb," yes­ter­day, to see if the five-year-old child of his for­mer lover was his on­ly vic­tim or if there were pic­tures/videos of oth­ers.

Cal­len­der's body was dis­cov­ered by passers-by hang­ing from a four-foot length of rope sus­pend­ed from a man­go tree some 30 feet off of Ceme­tery Street, me­tres from a near­by bur­ial site. Po­lice were con­tact­ed and a par­ty of of­fi­cers led by ASP Ro­han Par­dasie, Cpl Nanan and oth­ers went to the scene. Po­lice re­moved the body and Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Fran­cis viewed it and or­dered it re­moved to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre for an au­top­sy next Wednes­day.

Sources said his body was pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied by the moth­er of the in­fant who shared an in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ship with him. She con­firmed to po­lice that he was the man seen hav­ing oral sex with her child in sev­er­al video files on his cel­lu­lar phone.

ASP Par­dasie yes­ter­day took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to warn moth­ers against leav­ing their chil­dren with strangers, es­pe­cial­ly males.

The stom­ach-churn­ing events be­gan on Feb­ru­ary 1 when the woman, a moth­er of three, was shown the pic­tures of her in­no­cent child by her broth­er, who had ac­ci­den­tal­ly dis­cov­ered them when he went to si­lence Cal­len­der's phone af­ter the alarm went off.

The woman con­front­ed Cal­len­der and he ran out of her house. Since then, the 31-year-old se­cu­ri­ty guard, who had ad­dress­es at both Main­got Road and Ga­jad­har Lands, Princes Town, had been on the run af­ter his dis­traught ex-lover re­port­ed her find­ings to the po­lice. Cal­len­der is the son of a re­tired po­lice of­fi­cer.

Re­ports in­di­cate that he and the woman, who is al­so a se­cu­ri­ty guard, met while work­ing to­geth­er and de­vel­oped a re­la­tion­ship. They start­ed liv­ing to­geth­er short­ly there­after. The woman, who ap­peared on Ian Al­leyne's Crime Watch pro­gramme on Thurs­day, said he was a good man and start­ed tak­ing care of her daugh­ter af­ter the child's grand­moth­er be­came ill.

As the search in­ten­si­fied, how­ev­er, po­lice dis­cov­ered that Cal­len­der was a known sex preda­tor, hav­ing ap­peared be­fore a Princes Town mag­is­trate on­ly last week to an­swer charges of rape and rob­bery. He was out on bail when he be­trayed the trust of his lover, who left her daugh­ter in his care whom he as­sault­ed.

In­spec­tor Don Ga­jad­har of the South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

In an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, a 33-year-old Scar­bor­ough land­scap­er is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for al­leged­ly com­mit­ting a sex­u­al of­fence against a child. The re­port was made this week and the man was held yes­ter­day by po­lice. The Child Pro­tec­tion Unit is spear­head­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.