Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

A Siparia man, ac­cused of com­mit­ting one of the most grue­some mur­ders this year, has been re­mand­ed in­to state cus­tody fol­low­ing his ap­pear­ance at the Siparia Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day.

Michael Randy Ed­wards, 44, an un­em­ployed labour­er, has been charged with the mur­der of Siparia grand­moth­er Joanne Estick, whose sev­ered head was dis­cov­ered in a cool­er on March 13.

Af­ter weeks of in­ves­ti­ga­tion and ex­ten­sive search­es, in­clud­ing pig farms in the Siparia area, po­lice ap­pre­hend­ed Ed­wards on March 25. He was sub­se­quent­ly charged by WPC George of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions: Re­gion III and brought be­fore Court Mas­ter In­di­ra Chinebas in the South Court A.

Ed­wards, who has ad­dress­es in Sen­non Vil­lage, Siparia, and Corinth Vil­lage, Ste Madeleine, was not called up­on to en­ter a plea. A file is to be sub­mit­ted to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for the ap­point­ment of a state pros­e­cu­tor. A sta­tus hear­ing is sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 6, while Chief Pub­lic De­fend­er Ha­sine Shaikh is ex­pect­ed to as­sign a le­gal aid at­tor­ney on or be­fore April 30.

An au­top­sy con­duct­ed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, con­clud­ed that Estick died from a chop in­jury to her neck. Her body re­mains miss­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.15 pm on March 13, Cpl Patrice and PC Cum­mings of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force were on pa­trol when a res­i­dent di­rect­ed them to a green bag in a drain at Sen­non Vil­lage. Up­on in­spec­tion, they dis­cov­ered a fly-rid­den bag ly­ing on a con­crete drain by the road­side. In­side was a small, par­tial­ly open white plas­tic cool­er, which con­tained Estick’s sev­ered head.

The 60-year-old woman, who resided along Quinam Road, was last seen alive around 12.30 pm on March 12, walk­ing through the com­mu­ni­ty. Al­though po­lice de­scribed her as a street dweller, rel­a­tives re­vealed that Estick had moved in with a man off Quinam Road in De­cem­ber, af­ter leav­ing her fam­i­ly’s home in Ri­toville. While her loved ones lament­ed her long strug­gle with drug ad­dic­tion, res­i­dents of Sen­non Vil­lage shared that she of­ten per­formed odd jobs around the com­mu­ni­ty to earn a liv­ing.