The burnt remains of the eight victims of the Lindo Creek massacre were buried yesterday following a simple funeral service at the Lyken’s Funeral Home where only one family turned up to bid final goodbyes.
It was an emotional final parting for the parents and only sibling of Nigel Torres, who were not allowed to view the remains, which Jamaican forensic experts had earlier this year confirmed as being those of the slain men.
Those killed in the 2008 incident, which has left behind more questions than answers, were Dax Arokium, Cecil Arokium, Clifton Wong, Torres, Compton Speirs, Bonny Harry, Horace Drakes and Lancelot Lee.
The experts were however unable to group together the body parts of each of the men and at yesterday’s funeral service they were placed in three coffins. One coffin had the name ‘Clifton Wong’ printed on it; ‘Nigel Torres’ was on another and ‘Bonny Harris’ on the third. A plain clothes policeman was present at the parlour and ensured that the funeral went smoothly.
There was no mention of the names of the other five victims.
Following a funeral service which lasted for just over half an hour the coffins were taken one by one to Le Repentir Cemetery where they were buried in tombs.
Stabroek News arrived to an emotional scene. Mother of Torres, Yonette, kept insisting that she needed to see the remains for closure. The woman held onto the coffin and later threw her body on it before collapsing in tears after she was told that she could not. “Four years! Is four years and they never called me to see it! They don’t want nobody see it,” she wept.
She told the media that some time back the police called her and informed her of the date of the funeral and subsequently provided money for her to travel to Georgetown from Kwakwani after she told them that she was unable to pay her passage. She said that she was given $6,000.
The emotional woman said it was painful that after four years she still could not see her son’s remains, which she needed to bring some closure. She said she was still looking for some answers as to who killed the older of her two children and why.
She screamed her son’s name for about ten minutes until the coffin bearing his name was taken away.
Meanwhile, his father Edmond Torres said, “he done dead and bury already”. He noted that he had waited four years to finally put his son to rest and while he was not too mindful of seeing the remains, he was happy that they were going to be buried.
When Stabroek News subsequently asked Crime Chief Seelall Persaud why only relatives of one of the victims were present for the funeral, he said the police had notified all the relatives of the burial. He said it was the police who made the arrangements and paid for the burials to be done.
He pointed out that it was an officer who had visited Jamaica for a training programme earlier this year who was able to follow up the case which eventually led to the final report on the DNA tests being handed over. He stressed that the rank’s intervention, helped secure the results faster.
Asked why only three names were printed on the coffins when there were eight victims, Persaud said the police did not give such instructions, rather, “we asked the funeral parlour to do the burial”.
He then directed this newspaper to the Lyken’s Funeral Home.
Contact was made with proprietress Dawn Lyken’s but she opted not to comment.
Not informed
Despite what the crime chief said a relative of Lee insisted that they were never informed that the remains were to be buried yesterday.
His mother, Teresa Lee, broke down in tears when she heard that the remains were buried without her knowledge.
“At least I would have taken my priest to say a word of prayer for all of them because they lived like brothers, but nobody didn’t tell me anything,” the woman said crying.
She said she doubted her son who lives with her would have been informed and not notify her. She is hoping that they would find out where the remains were buried as she still wants to go with the priest to say a prayer.
“May their souls rest in peace, at least the remains get bury,” the woman said adding that she always breaks down in tears whenever she recalls the incident lamenting that it was for her to die and leave her son and not for him to die first. She hopes that she can now get her son’s death certificate.
Stabroek News was unable to make contact with the relatives of the other men.
The burnt skulls and bones of the eight miners were discovered by Leonard Arokium on a visit to Camp Lindo on June 21, 2008.
The men had been killed and burned at the camp. Arokium was the owner of the mining camp and father and brother of the two Akrokiums killed.
He had openly accused the Joint Services of committing the heinous act, an accusation that the police had denied.
The Lindo Creek murders remain unsolved as far as the public is concerned. There had been strong views expressed that corrupt elements of the security forces might have been responsible for the murders in a grab for gold.
However, the police blamed a gang headed by the now dead bandit Rondell `Fineman’ Rawlins. The Lindo Creek killings were one of three mass murders that stunned the country that year. The other two at Lusignan and Bartica also have question marks around them.
The Special Anti-Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago and Major Investigation Task Force of the Jamaica Constabulary Force had assisted in processing the Lindo Creek crime scene and investigators had advised that the identification of the persons murdered could only have been determined via DNA analysis.
As a result, samples of the human remains recovered from the crime scene were taken by the Jamaican team (which included a forensic pathologist) to the Jamaican Forensic Laboratory for analysis, while, the remainder was stored at the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour.
It was only in July this year that the police informed Arokium that the investigation was completed and relatives of the dead were free to uplift their burnt remains. He was told that the DNA results from Jamaica confirmed that the remains were those of the dead men.
