Four days after police zoned in on a forested area off Warden Road in Sangre Chiquito on the outskirts of Sangre Grande in search of missing 34-year-old Analisa Gookool- they unearthed a four-foot grave containing what they believe to be her remains.
Investigators told Guardian Media the body was in a state of decomposition. They said based on the description that they had been initially given as well as a tattoo found on the corpse’s right upper arm with the words, “Dave, Jeremy, and Kaithlyn,” they strongly suspect the body is Gookool’s.
The body was found just after 10 am with the assistance of a backhoe operator who was helping police with clearing the heavily forested area.
Police sources told Guardian Media that the female’s body still appeared “intact” leading them to believe that although Gookool was last on June 6, and reported missing to the police on June 9, it was quite likely she may not have been dead for more than a few weeks.
Analisa Gookool
The body was later taken to Forensic Sciences Center and pending a positive identification- a post mortem will be performed to ascertain the cause of death.
A senior source familiar with the investigation believes that Gookool of Toco Road, Vega De Oropouche, was lured to the area where she frequented with the other two suspects and may have been shot in the head and later buried.
The Sunday Guardian had reported exclusively about the search for Gookool which began last Friday after one of two suspects, known to the woman who had been in police custody for nine days, broke and told police last Thursday where she was possibly buried.
The suspect accompanied officers from the Eastern Division and Homicide Bureau of Investigations Region II over the last few days and after turning up empty-handed over the weekend they were finally able to locate the corpse.
Last Friday and over the weekend investigators had searched a fairly large forested area off Warden Road, with the use of an excavator but was unable to find any semblance of a body then.
Homicide investigators were able to put pieces of the puzzle together with the help of a parallel investigation that is being conducted by the Fraud Squad. Sources said that the investigation stems from a fraudulent transaction allegedly involving Gookool and the two other suspects.
A large hole was left behind as investigators exhumed a female body, from a forested area just off Warden Road, Sangre Chiquito, Sangre Grande yesterday. Homicide officers believe the body is missing 34-year-old Analisa Gookool.
ABRAHAM DIAZ
Senior investigators are working on the theory that Gookool’s disappearance stemmed from the sharing of the spoils from the illicit activity.
Investigators say that Gookool’s father and brother had been murdered seven years ago in St Helena.
Devanand, 52, a moneylender, and his son Jeremy were both sitting at the back of their St Helena home in Piarco in August 2014 when he was approached by a man who pretended to strike up a conversation about borrowing money. While the men were speaking- the gunman drew a firearm and shot both men in their heads before escaping in a vehicle.
Investigators also said they are trying to locate one known relative of the 34-year-old woman.
When Guardian Media visited Vega de Oropouche last Saturday, residents at Ram Trace said that a man and a woman moved into a house in the area recently. They said they became aware of the couple’s names when the man started speaking to them. The residents alleged they were told that “people wanted to kill the man and his wife.”
They left the area as their lives were in danger.