Trinidad: Two remaining prison escapees hiding in Las Lomas forest

(Trinidad Guardian) Vil­lagers at Sa­roop Trace in Las Lo­mas No. 2 were left trau­ma­tised and forced to lock up in their homes ear­ly yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, af­ter the two re­main­ing pris­on­ers who es­caped from Gold­en Grove in Arou­ca were seen run­ning through the area.

Michael Find­ley, from Laven­tille and Olan­tun­gi Den­bow, of Port-of-Spain, are said to be armed and very dan­ger­ous.

Up to press time, a spe­cial team of po­lice of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team, North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force and Ca­nine Unit, sup­port­ed by an aer­i­al search team in the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) he­li­copter, were comb­ing the thick forest­ed area of Las Lo­mas, Cen­teno and Brazil Vil­lage for the pris­on­ers, who were the on­ly two re­main­ing from a batch of eight who made a dar­ing es­cape from the Re­mand Sec­tion of the Gold­en Grove Prison be­tween Tues­day night and Wednes­day morn­ing.

While Guardian Me­dia was at Sa­roop Trace, vil­lagers ad­mit­ted they were very scared.

“Yeah, we have to be scared. We can’t go nowhere and leave our wives and chil­dren home. We glimpsed them walk­ing through the bush­es on­to the grav­el road here, right in front we…we watch­ing them cross more bush­es and then they start run­ning to the forest­ed area to Cen­teno,” a vil­lager who did not want to be named said as he point­ed to the di­rec­tion the es­caped pris­on­ers were seen head­ing.

The vil­lager said the two were spot­ted at about 2 pm.

“A man in a sil­ver car saw them and alert­ed us and he was brave enough to fol­low them and see where they were head­ing and that’s when we called the po­lice, who were not too far from here search­ing. They came in quick time with the dogs.”

Af­ter speak­ing with the vil­lagers, the team of of­fi­cers went to an area along El Car­men Road where they con­tact­ed the spe­cial search team on board the SSA he­li­copter and waved to them, giv­ing in­struc­tions to search a thick­ly forest­ed area near the Cen­teno Live­stock Sta­tion Dairy Unit.

Den­bow and Find­ley were two of five peo­ple ar­rest­ed and charged for the Feb­ru­ary dou­ble mur­ders of con­struc­tion work­ers An­dre La Touche and Abi­o­la Noel.

The sixth prison es­capee, At­i­ba Sealey, was re­cap­tured at about 10.45 am yes­ter­day in the said El Car­men Road area while ca­su­al­ly tak­ing a walk along the streets.

Po­lice of­fi­cers have thanked res­i­dents for their alert­ness and for con­tact­ing them and help­ing in the re­spec­tive re­cap­tures of the es­capees so far.

Po­lice said Sealy, 29, was one of three men held for the armed rob­bery of five em­ploy­ees and a pa­tron at Is­land Beer Chill and Grill in South Park, San Fer­nan­do, in Jan­u­ary. He was held by po­lice while hid­ing in the wash­room of the KFC out­let at the mall.

Hours af­ter the eight men es­caped from the prison, five of them were re­cap­tured in some bush­es near the Rock Park Ho­tel in St He­le­na.

They were iden­ti­fied as:

• Stef­fon Austin, of Erin.
• Joshua Janet, of Bras­so Seco, Paria.
• Mikhale Mo­hammed, of Waller­field, Ari­ma.
• Brent John­son, of Five Rivers, Arou­ca.
• Ker­ry Valenti­no, of Quash Trace, San­gre Grande.

They are all charged with mur­der and were on re­mand await­ing tri­al when they es­caped.

The eight men es­caped through a small hole in the up­per left cor­ner of cell 6 in the up­per south wing of the Re­mand Yard, which is oth­er­wise known as “the deep.”

A hack­saw was be­lieved to have been the tool used to cut through bars, while two bricks were al­so re­moved be­fore they made their es­cape.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are asked to cir­cu­late the pho­tos pro­vid­ed of Find­ley and Den­bow and to con­tact the near­est po­lice sta­tion if they see these es­capees, or have any in­for­ma­tion that will lead to their re­cap­ture.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the where­abouts of the es­caped men can con­tact the po­lice at 999, 911, 800-TIPS or any po­lice sta­tion or text/What­sApp 482-GARY.