(Trinidad Guardian) – The actions of retired Lance Corporal Ian Gross, which culminated in him ending his own life, have left his family puzzled.
Gross was found dead in a cell at the Santa Flora Police Station on Thursday afternoon, a day after he was arrested for setting his house on fire, forcing his elderly mother and five-year-old daughter to flee the house for their lives.
A police report stated that an officer found him hanging in the cell when he went to give him a meal.
Describing Gross as a disciplined and strong-minded person yesterday, his sister Lisa Williams said her 47-year-old brother retired last year after serving many years in the army.
She said he started a salt fish business, was involved in gardening and was also doing an online University of the West Indies (UWI) course. Gross lived in the upper floor of his two-storey home at Market Street, Palo Seco, while his 83-year-old mother and five-year-old daughter lived downstairs.
Williams explained that on Wednesday night around 11 o’clock, neighbours saw smoke coming from the upstairs area of the house and raised an alarm. Gross’ mother and daughter managed to escape to safety.
However, Gross had locked the upstairs door.
Neighbours climbed up a tank and helped him out of the house through a window. They used a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze before the Fire Service arrived.
Williams said, “He wasn’t showing no sign of stress, no sign of anything. I don’t know if in the few days what happened, what transpired. He tell the police when they reach that he light the house on fire.”
The following day (Thursday), the family took clothes, breakfast and lunch for him at the Santa Flora Police Station. But the police did not allow them to see him.
Williams said sometime after 1 pm on Thursday, she was at work when a relative called with the tragic news that he was dead.
She said the police called their mother and when she got there, she saw him on the ground.
“He was saying something but his voice was so low, going, she don’t know what he was saying.”
Williams was still trying to process what happened yesterday.
“Everything is a shock. From the time my brother had the age to leave school he started working MTS, while at MTS he applied for the army. He was always working, always a strong-minded person. He work and build this house,” she added.
Still in disbelief, Williams said her brother did not have many friends.
“Ever since growing up with our father it was gardening. We had many cows and goats and sheep, he was always into that. After retiring, he started his thing like the salt fish, the gardening. It had a time he made some (healing) oil like when the COVID now come out for your nose,” she recalled.
Williams said she spoke to him over the phone on Wednesday and everything seemed fine.
“I was not expecting this. My brother was not the type of person to say that you would think that he would have something hiding and not tell anybody. I don’t know what it is, he and mother was so close they talk about anything,” she said.
Williams added that Gross and his mother would go to the beach regularly and vacationed on various Caribbean islands every year. Gross also has a three-year-old child who lives in St Kitts.
