The death of a La Croix man, Tuesday night, reportedly during a domestic dispute, brought the homicide count in St. Vincent and the Grenadines over the four-day carnival weekend to five.
The latest homicide victim is 69-year-old Henry Jackson, a retired chauffeur who had worked with the Central Water and Sewerage Authority.
He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Evesham Health Centre sometime around 11 p.m. Tuesday.
Police have taken his wife, Hermina Jackson, into custody as their investigations continue.
iWitness News understands that police are initially pursuing a theory that Mr. Jackson was stabbed during a domestic dispute, reportedly involving his wife.
The allegation is that Mr. Jackson, who was reportedly drunk during the altercation, had become violent towards his wife.
His death comes on the heels of the discovery, on Sunday, of a yet unidentified decomposing body in Yambou.
The face of the body — believed to be that of a male — was decayed beyond recognition and police have asked members of the public with a missing relative to assist in identifying the body.
A post mortem is expected to be conducted on the body.
However, there are speculations that the person might have been killed, as residents recall hearing gunshots in the area recently.
One person who saw the body at the scene told iWitness News that it appeared to have been dragged and deposited where it was found, near a small stream.
Saturday night, the homicide count went up by three when three men, including a national footballer, were shot and killed in two separate incidents.
The footballer, Roy “Chicken” Richards, 34, died in hospital in Kingstown after being shot in his hometown, Barrouallie.
Another person, Daniel “Bogan” Hepburn, a 78-year-old businessman also of the Central Leeward town, died at the scene after being shot in the same incident sometime around 9 p.m.
Earlier that night, at approximately 7 p.m., police responded to a report and found that Kemmie Haynes, a 34-year-old labourer of Green Hill, had been shot and killed in the Central Kingstown community.
If the death of the person whose decomposing body was found in Yambou on Sunday is confirmed as a homicide, it will bring to 17 the homicide count in St. Vincent and the Grenadines so far this year.
Police have told iWitness News that the death of Carl Marks, brother of prominent lawyer and former senator, Ronny Marks, is being treated as a sudden death, pending the results of a post mortem.
It was widely rumoured that Marks was found dead at his home with gunshot wounds to his body.
Police, however, told iWitness News that there were no visible wounds to the body and there was no evidence of foul play.
Although none of the deaths seem directly related to Vincy Mas, they were a stain on the celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the carnival as a summer festival.
However, the four-day weekend seems otherwise to have been a quiet one in terms of the number of persons arrested.
On Wednesday, there was only one arraignment at the Serious Offences Court in Kingstown, where persons charged with more serious crimes appear.
Police Constable Ettian Charles was brought before Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias on charges related to the theft of EC$75,000 from the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Postal Corporation in Kingstown on Friday, July 7, 2017.
Several persons were taken to the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court, suggesting that they were booked for misdemeanours.
All these murders, all across the land, will help destroy our already weak mainland tourist industry. Even in Jamaica and Trinidad/Tobago crime and murder are highly concentrated outside the tourist zones. Although most of our murders and other criminal acts occur on the mainland, this is the part of the country the government is trying to develop with the building of Argyle airport, yet another reason to doubt the airport’s viability.