The decomposing body of an unidentified man found in some bushes off Rincon Road, Las Cuevas is believed to be that of a suspect in the murders Hollis and Shereen Bailey-Valdez, who were found dead at their home on Friday.
Police sources told Newsday that the body was found by hikers at about 9 am on Monday, a short distance away from the scene of the Bailey-Valdez murder.
The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, police said, so it could not be determined whether there were any wounds or marks of violence on the body. Police sources added that no weapons were found near the body.
The body is expected to be taken to the Forensic Science Centre as investigators seek to identify the body.
On Friday at about 7.45 am, an anonymous caller contacted the Maracas Bay Police Station and reported hearing several gunshots at Rincon Road, Las Cuevas. Officers responded to the call and found the couple dead on their bedroom floor. The couple was last seen at the funeral for 22-year-old Meshach Gibson who was killed in a shoot-out with police in La Fillette, Blanchisseusse on July 19.
Relatives claimed that Shereen Bailey-Valdez was in an on-and-off relationship with the suspect for 13 years. She got death threats from the man, who gave her four days to live prior to her murder. After the murder, villagers said the suspect admitted to killing the couple to a relative.
Villagers were told that shortly after the murder, a single gunshot was heard in the forest. Police and villagers searched the forest on Friday for a body, but to no avail.
[caption id="attachment_967701" align="alignnone" width="1024"] FILE PHOTO: Villagers and media wait outside the fence of the home in which Hollis Valdez and his wife Shereen Bailey-Valdez were murdered in their bed in Rincon Village on Friday as police process the murder scene inside.Photo by Roger Jacob[/caption]
Fiery protests as villagers demand to see body
Villagers staged a protest as police processed the scene and removed the decomposing body from a forested area off Rincon Road as they demanded to see the body and confirm for themselves whether or not the body was that of the suspect.
“Everybody was feeling unsafe since he was on the run so people wanted to identify or confirm that it was him. But the police didn't want that,” one villager said.
The villagers lit debris on Rincon Road in protest of the police’s refusal to show them the body. The burning debris was removed, but residents formed a human blockade to stop the officers from leaving the scene, demanding that they see the body.
Eventually, police showed a picture of the body to a relative of Bailey-Valdez who said that the body was that of the suspect. Villagers said that the body was missing its hands – supposedly as a result of animals in the forest – and that he may have had a gunshot wound to his head.
“He identified the body by its structure,” the villager said. “Remember he (the suspect) is known to us because he lived in the village too.”
Residents in the village said there is a se
