Shane Su­perville

and Sascha Wil­son

Po­lice will be await­ing DNA test­ing to de­ter­mine whose skele­tal re­mains were found in a forest­ed area of Dibe Road off Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James, on Tues­day.

While in­ves­ti­ga­tors ini­tial­ly sus­pect­ed the re­mains could have been kid­nap vic­tim Shashi Anand Ram­per­sad, they were no longer con­vinced af­ter the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion badge of Win­ston Ros­tant of Point Fortin was found near the shal­low grave.

Ros­tant, 48 and an­oth­er man Ju­nior Tay­lor, 43, have been miss­ing since Oc­to­ber 27, 2024. Since then they have not been seen or heard from since. Rel­a­tives said they were kid­napped and $100,000 was de­mand­ed for their safe re­lease.

On Tues­day, po­lice from var­i­ous units, in­clud­ing the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau, the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad (AKS), the po­lice Ca­nine Unit and the West­ern Di­vi­sion with as­sis­tance from the Reg­i­ment went to a bushy area off Riv­er Creek Road, Dibe, where they found the skele­ton in a foetal po­si­tion in a shal­low grave.

They went to the area in search of Ram­per­sad but were drawn to the grave af­ter po­lice ca­dav­er dogs picked up a scent.

Near the body was Ros­tant’s Ce­mex em­ploy­ee iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card.

The re­mains were tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, for DNA test­ing.

Po­lice said un­til the re­sults are ob­tained they do not know if the per­son in the grave was Ram­per­sad, Ros­tant or Tay­lor.

On Tues­day, Ka­reem Ro­driguez was de­nied bail af­ter be­ing charged with Ram­per­sad’s kid­nap­ping. The 36-year-old busi­ness­man was snatched on No­vem­ber 21, last year.

Mean­while, DNA sam­ples were tak­en from Jacque­line Tay­lor, the moth­er of Ju­nior Tay­lor, af­ter the dis­cov­ery.

Tay­lor, 48, a labour­er with the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and a fa­ther of two, and Ros­tant, both of Fan­ny Vil­lage, Point Fortin, were kid­napped last Oc­to­ber and a $100,000 ran­som was de­mand­ed for their re­lease. The duo went to drop a phone for Tay­lor’s fe­male friend and nev­er re­turned home. The fol­low­ing day rel­a­tives re­ceived a ran­som call.

Aleena Munroe, Tay­lor’s aunt, while speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at their Point Fortin home, said the or­deal has been dif­fi­cult.

“This is very hard for his moth­er. She al­ready lost a son to COVID. If that is him, this will be very hard for her to face this.  No­body wants to hear that their child has died, es­pe­cial­ly in a sit­u­a­tion such as this.”

She said Tay­lor had tak­en a loan to pur­chase a car be­fore his kid­nap­ping. “He want­ed to buy a car, for him­self and run a lit­tle taxi when things get hard. I am pray­ing to God that it is not him.” 

Munroe urged peo­ple in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties to stop and find a job. “To young peo­ple, I say look for a job. The Gov­ern­ment has a lot of pos­si­bil­i­ties for young peo­ple. Find your­self in these things and get your mon­ey.”

Ros­tant’s rel­a­tives went to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre yes­ter­day.

In his home­town of Fan­ny Vil­lage, Guardian Me­dia spoke with Sybil George-Hutchin­son, 91, who has known him since he was 16 years old. She said the in­ci­dent left the com­mu­ni­ty and every­one who knew him in shock. “Win­ston, he was a dar­ling. He helped me take care of my broth­er when he was sick.”

And Ram­per­sad’s rel­a­tives said they had no word from po­lice that he was found in the grave. Coun­cil­lor for the area Bren­da John said the re­cent shoot­ings in the En­ter­prise area and the ab­duc­tion of Ram­per­sad war­rant a greater po­lice pres­ence in com­mu­ni­ties.  

With re­port­ing by Shas­tri Boodan