Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

Rel­a­tives of Gary Layne, who was found dead in the hold­ing cell of the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion on Sun­day af­ter­noon, are call­ing for a full probe in­to what hap­pened, as they claim he would nev­er do harm to him­self as he had his five-year-old daugh­ter “to live for.”

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, Layne, 30, of Mau­si­ca, was placed in a cell in the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion II area of the sta­tion. He was wait­ing to be in­ter­viewed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors over a con­spir­a­cy to mur­der and gang-re­lat­ed of­fences.

How­ev­er, of­fi­cers who were check­ing on pris­on­ers lat­er found Layne un­re­spon­sive in the cell. He was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope but was de­clared dead.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors went to the sta­tion and ex­am­ined the cell. In­ves­ti­ga­tors lat­er con­clud­ed that Layne died by sui­cide.

How­ev­er, a close rel­a­tive who wished not to be named told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that based on pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion they re­ceived from of­fi­cers who worked that day, they do not be­lieve it was a sui­cide.

Ini­tial­ly, the rel­a­tive said they were told Layne hung him­self with a pair of three-quar­ter jeans. How­ev­er, the rel­a­tive said they did not take a three-quar­ter jeans to him as a change of clothes.

“He was sent a pair of box­ers and a short pants…no three-quar­ter pants and when we told the po­lice that, sud­den­ly we were told that it was a long pants he used to hang him­self but Gary was nev­er one to hurt him­self. He loved his child and worked hard for her and would have nev­er want­ed to leave her in the world with­out a fa­ther.”

Rel­a­tives al­so said they fear a cov­er-up as the body was not tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James for an au­top­sy up to yes­ter­day. They are hop­ing it will be tak­en there to­day so the au­top­sy can be done and they can get “a lit­tle clo­sure as to how he died.”

The rel­a­tive said Layne was ar­rest­ed along with an­oth­er man for pos­ses­sion of a firearm that was sus­pect­ed to have been loaded with bul­lets be­long­ing to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. The rel­a­tive dis­closed with the court date close by, Layne’s co-ac­cused was killed dur­ing a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in Mara­cas/St Joseph less than a month ago.

“We heard that he gave a state­ment and he was killed af­ter that but Gary did not know him. Ap­par­ent­ly, the man hired him to go some­where and un­know­ing to Gary he placed the gun un­der the dri­ver’s seat and in a road­block, po­lice searched them and found the gun and ar­rest­ed both of them and ever since the first court ap­pear­ance he had to go every day by the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion to sign and when he went over the week­end they de­tained him say­ing for ques­tion­ing. That’s what he told his fa­ther,” the rel­a­tive said.

“We need clo­sure and we want this thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed so that we can get the jus­tice that Gary and we, the fam­i­ly, de­serve.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, a se­nior of­fi­cer at the North­ern Di­vi­sion said the mat­ter was cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.