Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Was Rio Claro bee­keep­er Melvin Pas­call killed over a prop­er­ty dis­pute? Rel­a­tives of the de­ceased be­lieve this may have been the mo­tive, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors said yes­ter­day that in­quiries are on­go­ing.

Con­cern arose af­ter Pas­call could not be reached on his cell­phone. His nephew went to his home at Deep Ravine Vil­lage short­ly be­fore 8 am, where he dis­cov­ered Pas­call’s life­less body on a bed with gun­shot wounds to the face and chest. Rel­a­tives said this led them to be­lieve he was shot while asleep.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side the home, fam­i­ly mem­bers said Pas­call had lived there for more than 20 years. The prop­er­ty orig­i­nal­ly be­longed to his step­fa­ther. Af­ter the deaths of his step­fa­ther and moth­er last year, they said Pas­call be­gan re­ceiv­ing threats. Oth­er rel­a­tives were al­so al­leged­ly threat­ened in re­la­tion to the prop­er­ty, in­clud­ing agri­cul­tur­al land. Po­lice con­firmed that Pas­call had pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed re­ceiv­ing threats.

A rel­a­tive said Pas­call had al­so been ac­cused of burn­ing a ve­hi­cle al­leged­ly linked to in­di­vid­u­als in­volved in the dis­pute.

“We are not ac­cus­ing any­one, but it is about land and it is about house,” an­oth­er rel­a­tive said.

Fam­i­ly mem­bers be­lieve Pas­call may have been killed ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing, as a res­i­dent re­port­ed hear­ing gun­shots around 2 am. De­spite the on­go­ing dis­pute, they said they nev­er ex­pect­ed the sit­u­a­tion to es­ca­late to vi­o­lence.

Pas­call lived alone. He had been mar­ried twice and fa­thered three chil­dren, the youngest of whom is nine years old. Rel­a­tives were un­able to state his ex­act age but be­lieve he was in his 40s.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.