(Trinidad Express) JURORS in the Vindra Naipaul-Coolman murder trial yesterday heard how the Chaguanas businesswoman’s body was cut into pieces with an electric saw, placed in garbage bags and temporarily buried before being dug up and dumped out at sea.
The source of that information came from an interview conducted between Earl “Bobo” Trimmingham, one of the accused men, and homicide detectives in May 2007. During the interview, Trimmingham allegedly confessed to hearing one of his co-accused in late November or December 2006, saying there was a “wuk” to be carried out. He allegedly said that in December, he saw another co-accused removing a woman of East Indian descent from inside a vehicle. The woman’s hands and feet were bound with duct tape, he was recorded as saying.
Trimmingham spoke of how in the later days, he again saw the woman, whom he then realised was Naipaul-Coolman, lying on a pool table in a small red-brick house at La Puerta, Diego Martin. At the time she appeared to be dead, he said. He said he saw his co-accused taking turns in cutting up her body on the pool table with the electric saw and placing the body parts in garbage bags, before they proceeded to a hilly area where the body was buried. Trimmingham said he also accompanied the men to the burial spot. The body was subsequently removed from the hole and taken to Carenage where it was placed in a boat, taken out to sea and dumped, Trimmingham was recoded as saying. The interview was conducted between Trimmingham, Supt Jason Forde and WPC Johnson at the Port of Spain homicide office on May 12, 2007.
Following the reading of the interview notes to the jury, defence attorney Colin Selvon, who is representing Trimmingham, proceeded to cross-examine Forde on the authenticity of the interview notes. Selvon said it was a matter of law and his client’s constitutional rights to have an independent third party present during the interview. Selvon questioned why this was not done but the officer said Trimmingham was advised of his rights to have a family member, Justice of the Peace or an attorney present but he did not make any request.
Forde, when questioned, said he was also unaware that Trimmingham on two previous occasions had refused to have an interview conducted. On a number of occasions Justice Malcolm Holdip, who is presiding over the trial at the Second Criminal Court of the Hall of Justice, interrupted Selvon during his cross-examination of the officer, asking him to “move on” and not continue asking Forde the same questions he had already previously answered. Naipaul-Coolman was chief executive officer of Xtra Foods Supermarket at Grand Bazaar when she was kidnapped from the driveway of her Radix Road, Lange Park, home on the night of December 19, 2006. A $122,000 ransom payment was made for her release the next morning but she was never freed nor was her body ever found. The trial will resume this morning when Forde will be further cross-examined.
