An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors (CSI) were set to re­turn to the area known as Dog Is­land, which is lo­cat­ed off Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve, Sea Lots, yes­ter­day—af­ter a grave­yard of hu­man bones was found in the swamp that bor­ders the high-risk com­mu­ni­ty.

The grue­some dis­cov­ery was made around 3.30 pm on Thurs­day (Feb­ru­ary 29), af­ter law­men, act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, jour­neyed a quar­ter of a mile in­to the swamp, which runs along­side the Gulf of Paria.

Forced to wade through the marsh, which con­tained pig fae­ces, as sand­flies and mos­qui­toes swarmed dur­ing their search for the al­leged hu­man re­mains, the par­ty of of­fi­cers were still sur­prised when they dis­cov­ered the macabre scene of hu­man bones strewn across the man­grove.

In ad­di­tion, law­men al­so found the re­mains of a body hang­ing from a tree, where a dark-coloured jer­sey con­tained what ap­peared to be a hu­man skull with bul­let holes in it.

Of­fi­cers from the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, led by In­sp Braith­waite, along with PCs Clarke and Pierre and Sgts Bowen and Ram­per­sad, of the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion; and Sgt Seecha­ran, of the Homi­cide Bu­reau, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ex­er­cise.

They were ac­com­pa­nied by of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, the Ca­nine Unit, and the Guard and Emer­gency Branch.

The area has been de­scribed by per­sons as a “grave­yard” and a “dump­ing site” where wild pigs are usu­al­ly found.

Of­fi­cials be­lieve the site was used to dis­pose of per­sons whose re­mains were eat­en by the pigs, leav­ing on­ly the bones be­hind.

The bones that were re­trieved on Thurs­day were or­dered re­moved by the Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that DNA test­ing has to be done to de­ter­mine just how many vic­tims’ re­mains were among the bones col­lect­ed.

Res­i­dents yes­ter­day de­clined to speak about the dis­cov­ery, while an anony­mous caller claimed it was a grave­yard where bod­ies were be­ing dumped for years.

He said it was not a hid­den se­cret and every­one in the area knew of it, as he di­rect­ed re­porters to an­oth­er site where he claimed re­mains had been dumped.

En­quiries are con­tin­u­ing by Re­gion One Homi­cide.