Police have made a major breakthrough in the brutal attack on a British couple, after a 25-year-old Tobago man allegedly confessed to officers that he was involved in the incident. Late last evening, the suspect was charged with attempting to murder Peter Greene, 65, and his wife Murium, 59, at their Tobago home last weekend. A release from the Police Service yesterday confirmed that the suspect of Argyle, Tobago, was charged with the offences. He is expected to appear before a Scarborough magistrate on Monday. A file on the investigation was faxed to the office of acting Director of Public Prosecutions Carla Brown-Antoine from Tobago yesterday. After reviewing the evidence, Brown-Antoine gave instructions for the suspect to be charged with attempted murder.
The man, police sources said, had been in police custody since Monday but only decided to "come clean" on his alleged involvement when interviewed by three homicide detectives who flew in from Trinidad to handle the case. He, however, refused to speak with officers from the Tobago Division and other law enforcement agencies in Tobago who had initially started the probe. Police were only able to crack the case when acting Deputy Police Commissioner Gilbert Reyes instructed that acting ASP Johnny Abraham, Insp Stanley Ramdeen and PC Sunil Ramoutar of the Region II Homicide Bureau of Investigations take over the case. On Wednesday, the officers arrived in Tobago and started their inquiries. They visited the crime scene and reviewed statements taken from neighbours and other police officers.
On Thursday night, the officers were able to secure an alleged confession statement for the suspect.
Up to late last night, acting Police Commissioner, James Philbert was in Tobago speaking with his officers about the incident. The English couple, originally from Wellington in West Somerset, England, was attacked by unknown assailants around 2.30 pm a week ago, a few days after they returned to their house at Bacolet Crescent, Tobago. Both received chop wounds about their bodies and were airlifted to Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope. Murium remained in stable condition at the High Dependency Unit at the facility, while Greene was in a medically-induced coma at the nearby Intensive Care Unit. Police said they were following several other leads in the case, including the brutal slaying of Swedish couple Anna Sundsval, 62, and Oke Olsoon, 73, who were hacked to death at their Bon Accord, Tobago, home on October 11, last year.