An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A $100,000 re­ward is be­ing of­fered by Crime Stop­pers of T&T for any in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest of those re­spon­si­ble for the mur­der of Woman Po­lice Act­ing Cor­po­ral Anusha Ever­s­ley, and a $5,000 cash re­ward for the re­cov­ery of each of the guns stolen from the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Head­quar­ters, La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do.

In an ad­ver­tise­ment in the news­pa­per to­day, ti­tled “A po­lice of­fi­cer has been killed”, Crime Stop­pers wrote, “This is not just a po­lice mat­ter. This is a na­tion­al emer­gency. Some­one knows some­thing. You may have seen some­thing. You may have heard some­thing. You may know where these weapons are.”

It urged, “Now is the time to act.”

The re­wards for in­for­ma­tion came even as the po­lice re­cov­ered 43 firearms and over 900 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion stolen from the sta­tion on Sun­day.

So far, ten peo­ple are in cus­tody and are be­ing ques­tioned in con­nec­tion with the shock­ing crimes.

Among those de­tained are two mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers and a 16-year-old trades­man of Rose­hill, Clax­ton Bay.

The TTPS has yet to con­firm the num­ber of guns and the quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion that were stolen from the sta­tion’s safe, but Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has as­sured that an au­dit is un­der­way and those fig­ures will be con­firmed soon.

It was claimed that 62 guns and 4,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were stolen from the sta­tion’s safe.

Promis­ing they will not give up un­til all the weapons and am­mu­ni­tion are re­cov­ered, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials said the mat­ter con­tin­ued to be among those re­ceiv­ing the high­est pri­or­i­ty for the TTPS.

A se­ries of op­er­a­tions hours af­ter Ever­s­ley’s body and the sub­se­quent theft were dis­cov­ered, re­sult­ed in an ini­tial seizure of 30 firearms, along with 612 rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion.

These joint op­er­a­tions in the Clax­ton Bay area in­volved of­fi­cers of the South­ern Di­vi­sion, the Spe­cial Branch and the Home In­va­sion Team, and led to the ar­rest of sev­en sus­pects.

That op­er­a­tion was fol­lowed by a sec­ond seizure af­ter po­lice in­ter­cept­ed a white Kia K2700 truck, with three men and found 13 firearms, 12 mag­a­zines, ten 12-gauge car­tridges, and 288 rounds of 9 am­mu­ni­tion.

The teenag­er, along with two scrap iron deal­ers aged 22 and 23, both of Clax­ton Bay, were ar­rest­ed im­me­di­ate­ly.

Ever­s­ley, 42, was dis­cov­ered dead at the sta­tion around 4.40 am on Sun­day.

She was a moth­er of three chil­dren, aged 18, 15 and sev­en, and had over 19 years of ser­vice.

Ever­s­ley’s body was dis­cov­ered by two fel­low of­fi­cers, who were re­port­ed­ly asleep in the sta­tion’s dorm dur­ing the time of the in­ci­dent.

She had been found clad in a grey bra alone, ly­ing on a mat­tress, with blood ooz­ing from her nose.

It was ini­tial­ly be­lieved that she had been shot in the neck, but a post-mortem list­ed the of­fi­cial cause of death as stran­gu­la­tion ac­com­pa­nied by blunt force trau­ma.