Casan­dra Thomp­son�Forbes

British High Com­mis­sion­er to Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T yes­ter­day called for swift ac­tion fol­low­ing the bru­tal mur­der of British na­tion­al Richard Wheel­er and his wife, Grace, in Carn­bee, To­ba­go, yes­ter­day.

Richard, a 72-year-old at­tor­ney who has been liv­ing on the is­land for the past 16 years and his wife Grace, 63, a re­al es­tate agent, were dis­cov­ered hacked to death at their Rise­land Gar­dens, Carn­bee, home by a yard at­ten­dant around 11 am.

The at­ten­dant re­port­ed­ly found Grace ly­ing on her back on the prop­er­ty's lawn while her hus­band was found in the liv­ing room. The em­ploy­ee im­me­di­ate­ly called the Old Grange Po­lice Sta­tion.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Se­bro or­dered the bod­ies re­moved to the Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary.

Of­fi­cers who were at the scene de­scribed the act as "grue­some and very bloody." A se­nior of­fi­cer said Grace's throat was slit, while Richard re­ceived sev­er­al chops about the body.

Po­lice be­lieve rob­bery may have been the mo­tive as the house was ran­sacked.

Neigh­bours told the T&T Guardian the cou­ple was robbed sev­en times in the past, the most re­cent be­ing ear­li­er this year. The house, how­ev­er, is al­so out­fit­ted with an alarm sys­tem mon­i­tored by Blink Vig­i­lance and the cou­ple had dogs.

The cou­ple was last seen alive on Mon­day evening by neigh­bours.

Wheel­er worked at top re­gion­al firm Lex Caribbean and spe­cialised in con­veyance and prop­er­ty law, while his wife worked with Is­land In­vest­ments.

The killing sent shock­waves in the qui­et, mid­dle-class vil­lage, with many res­i­dents ex­press­ing con­cern over not on­ly these killings but the lat­est spate of gun-re­lat­ed killings on the is­land.

One res­i­dent, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said more po­lice pa­trols were need­ed in the area.

"This sit­u­a­tion is very fright­en­ing. They were qui­et peo­ple...no­body's busi­ness...and look what hap­pened to them.

"The whole com­mu­ni­ty is out here as we speak be­cause this isn't a nor­mal thing. Some peo­ple get break-ins and we try to look out for one an­oth­er but we need more help from the po­lice. We need more pa­trols, es­pe­cial­ly of­fi­cers on foot and rid­ing their bikes like long time," the res­i­dent added.

To­ba­go Di­vi­sion Supt Garth Nel­son told the me­dia the po­lice shared the res­i­dents' con­cerns, but not­ed vil­lagers need­ed to be more vig­i­lant.

"The com­plex­ion of To­ba­go is chang­ing, not that it is be­com­ing crime-rid­den but every­body needs to be more alert, more re­cep­tive, be aware of your sur­round­ings and be aware of peo­ple who you al­low in­to your place, both as ten­ants and clean­ers as the case may be," Nel­son said.

The in­ci­dent brought To­ba­go's mur­der toll to sev­en for 2015. To­ba­go Homi­cide Bu­reau is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Wor­ry­ing at­tacks

Since 2008 there have been sev­en oth­er cas­es of ex­pa­tri­ates be­ing chopped in To­ba­go.

The most re­cent was Hu­ber­tus Keil, 74, and Bir­gid Keil, 71, who were found chopped to death on No­vem­ber 22, 2014.

Their bod­ies were found ap­prox­i­mate­ly one mile east of the beach, near the mouth of the riv­er at Ba­co­let Bay.

In No­vem­ber 2009, the body of Ger­man na­tion­al Pe­ter Taut was found in a shal­low grave in the yard of his home at Ba­co­let Cres­cent. He was found with his hands and feet bound and he was gagged with duct tape.

Ear­li­er that year, in Au­gust, Muri­um and Pe­ter Green were chopped by an as­sailant and left for dead, but luck­i­ly sur­vived the at­tack. They lived a few hous­es away from Taut in the same neigh­bour­hood. They now live with some phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties.

Clint Alex­is, of Ar­gyle, To­ba­go, was charged with the at­tempt­ed mur­der of the Greens, and was al­so as­sist­ing po­lice with in­for­ma­tion for Taut's mur­der. How­ev­er, he was cleared of charges in 2011 due to in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence. Pe­ter Green, in an email, al­so ac­cept­ed that Alex­is was not their at­tack­er.

In Oc­to­ber 2008, Swedish cou­ple An­na Sundsval, 62, and her com­pan­ion Oke Ol­soon, 73, were chopped to death in their vil­la on An­tho­ny Charles Cres­cent, Bon Ac­cord Es­tate De­vel­op­ment, in west To­ba­go.

To date, no one has been found guilty of these chop­pings.