Trini murdered in US

TRINIDAD-born Curt Blackman, 38, was found dead with multiple stab wounds to his body in his  Durham, North Carolina apartment home last Thursday. Up to presstime, no arrests had been made nor a motive established for the Trinidad born man’s murder. On Thursday, Duke University police were notified when Curt Blackman, a Duke University employee, failed to show up for work. They entered Blackman’s top-floor apartment on Hilton Avenue and discovered his body. A call was then made to Durham police. 

Blackman was stabbed to death, according to investigators. In what police admit is an unusual move, nearly 24 hours after the discovery, the body was removed from the apartment and taken to the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Chapel Hill for autopsy. Crime scene investigators spent Thursday and Friday sifting through items and collecting evidence found in the building in the Forest Hills neighbourhood. Neighbours are being asked to check in with police as they come and go from the neighbourhood. Neighbour Kirk Griffin knew something was wrong when he saw the police at his front door. Duke University officials on Friday remembered Curt Blackman as a “kind and caring person who was deeply interested in bettering the lives of the graduate students.” Blackman, the coordinator for graduate recruitment and minority programmes at Duke, was found dead in his Durham apartment Thursday, by Duke police who went to check on him after a colleague expressed concern that he had failed to arrive for work on Thursday morning. The university police then called Durham police, who are leading the investigation.

“I am shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of Curt Blackman, a young man of great talent and, more importantly, a kind and caring person who was deeply interested in bettering the lives of the graduate students at Duke,” said Lewis Siegel, dean of the graduate school. Siegel noted that Blackman planned to leave Duke in August to pursue a doctoral degree of his own at Northwestern University’s School of Communications. “Curt was so looking forward to continuing his studies next year, having been accepted to the graduate school at Northwestern,” Siegel said. “His death is a terrible blow to us all.” A native of Trinidad who left his family home 16 years ago, Blackman recently received his American citizenship. He joined Duke in August 2000 and assumed his position in the graduate school in 2001.

He was a former student of St Stephen’s College in Princes Town. His mother, Greta Blackman-Barrow, who resides in Couva, has been notified of the death and is making efforts to have the body flown back to Trinidad for a funeral and burial service. Heather Dean, a graduate student in neurobiology who is president of Duke’s Graduate and Professional Student Council, remembered Blackman as a “fun-loving, sweet guy, always bubbly and always ready to tease you. He was very supportive of graduate student groups, and did a lot, especially with minority recruitment.”