One of the 11 men on trial for the murder of businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-Coolman allegedly confessed to his involvement in the crime when questioned by police months after her disappearance.
Jurors in the high profile trial learned of the confession allegedly given by Earl “Bobo” Trimmingham, as the police officer who interviewed him testified in the Port-of-Spain Second Criminal Court yesterday.
WPC Josine Johnson’s evidence centered around her interaction with Trimmingham and she also provided a transcript of her interview with him which was read to the jury. Although Trimmingham identified others who participated in the crime, their names were withheld when it was read to the jury as he is not allowed to implicate his co-accused.
In the statement, Trimmingham, whose brother Marlon is also on trial for the crime, allegedly told Johnson he assisted in disposing of the former Xtra Foods chief executive’s body. However, he repeatedly denied being involved in her kidnapping and subsequent murder.
According to the interview notes, Trimmingham, of Upper La Puerta, Diego Martin, claimed that in December 2006 he was approached by a man who offered him a “wuk”.
He claimed he only realised the job was related to a kidnapping when he saw a group of men removing a bound and gagged woman of East Indian descent from a car and placing her in a red brick house in the community later that evening.
He claimed he learned the woman was Naipaul-Coolman three days later when he was contacted again by the man with the job offer.
Trimmingham claimed when he entered the house he noticed the woman, who appeared to be dead, lying on top of a pool table. He said he realised she was Naipaul-Coolman as he had recognised her face from numerous media reports broadcast in the days following her abduction.
Trimmingham admitted to standing in the room as a man used a rotary power saw to cut her body into pieces while other men were placing the body parts into four garbage bags.
He said he was then instructed to take the bags to a hilly area in the community and bury them. He claimed that a week after the body was disposed of, police raided the community and arrested him, his brother and several other people, who were all eventually released after being interrogated.
Trimmingham ended the interview by allegedly revealing to Johnson that immediately after being released he and a group of men returned to the burial site, exhumed the remains and took them to Carenage where a boat was used to dump the bags at sea.
Naipaul-Coolman was abducted from her home at Lange Park, Chaguanas, on December 19, 2006. A $122,000 ransom was paid by her family but she was not released and her body has never been found.
Since the trial began in March last year, prosecutors have presented circumstantial evidence found during a series of raids on the accused men’s homes and at the house where she was allegedly held captive and killed.
They have also tendered into evidence a gun which was allegedly found at the home of one of the accused men and was later linked to spent shells found at the scene of the kidnapping.
In addition to Trimmingham’s confession, which is likely to be strongly disputed by defence attorneys in their cross-examination, prosecutors are also relying on the sworn statement of Keon Gloster, who was allegedly present at the time of her murder but did not participate. However, Gloster has repeatedly claimed he was coerced by police into signing the statements which implicated the accused men, most of whom are his relatives.
Johnson will be cross-examined when the trial resumes this morning.
Who’s In court
The 11 men before the jury and Justice Malcolm Holdip are siblings Shervon and Devon Peters, their other brother Anthony Dwayne Gloster, brothers Keida and Jamille Garcia, brothers Marlon and Earl Trimmingham, Ronald Armstrong, Antonio Charles and Lyndon James.
Allan “Scanny” Martin was also on trial before he was shot dead by police after staging a daring escape from the Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain, prison in late July.
A 13th man, Raphael Williams, was charged with the crime but died in prison in 2011 of complications from sickle-cell anaemia.