Cop: I saw nothing looking like blood

Supt Anthony James was one of the lead investigators who executed search warrants at the home of Anthony Gloster, one of the men before the court charged with Naipaul-Coolman’s murder committed sometime between January 6, and May 9, 2007.

James returned yesterday to continue his testimony at the trial of the 12 men accused of killing the Xtra Foods Supermarket chief executive officer. On December 19, 2006, Naipaul-Coolman, 52, was kidnapped from the driveway of her Lange Park, Chaguanas, home.

A ransom demand was made for her safe release and some of it was paid, but she was not freed. Her body was never found.

On trial are Shervon “Buffy” Peters; Keida Garcia, Marlon “Mad Man Marlon” Trimmingham; Earl “Bobo” Trimmingham; Ronald “22” Armstrong; Antonio “Hedges” Charles; Joel “Ninja” Fraser; Lyndon “Iron” James; Allan “Scanny’ “Martins; Devon “Blackboy” Peters; Anthony Dwayne Gloster, also called Anthony Peters and Jamile “WASA” Garcia.

It is the prosecution’s case that Naipaul-Coolman, was shot on December 19, 2006, and kidnapped from the driveway of her home at Lange Park, Chaguanas, and was shot to death about three days after Christmas 2006 while sitting on a pool table in an un-plastered red brick house at La Puerta Avenue, Diego Martin. Blood was seen running down her leg, the prosecution has alleged.

DNA evidence was allegedly found at the red brick house and Naipaul-Coolman was said to have been bound with duct tape.

It is also the prosecution’s case that Naipaul-Coolman’s body was cut up with an electric saw while on the pool table. Supt James, who accompanied a party of police officers to the house at Upper La Puerta Avenue, said yesterday when they went to the premises, the police were ‘looking for a missing person.’

He also said he didn’t note anything peculiar about the pool table on January 6, 2007. Questioned by attorney Mario Merritt, James admitted that cadaver dogs were taken to the scene, but he could not say if they were used during the search at Upper La Puerta Avenue.

Merritt: You saw no evidence of it (the pool table) being used as a meat board?

James: I cannot say.

“It (the pool table) didn’t attract me,” he said, adding that there was no smell or anything else to raise his suspicions. I detected nothing while conducting my search,” he testified.

Questioned by Merritt about the duct tape the police found in a pot on an old stove in one of the rooms in the house, James said he saw when crime scene investigator, Mike Golding, placed his markings on the evidence bag in which the duct tape was placed.

Shown the evidence bag which contained the duct tape, James admitted that there was no date entered on the bag nor was there the CSI’s signature.

It has been suggested by defence attorney Colin Selvon that the duct tape was planted by the police at the house. James has denied the suggestion.

Yesterday, James admitted that the evidence bag had no indication as to when the duct tape was collected by police. Questioned by attorney Joseph Pantor, James said when the police went with a search warrant on May 9, 2007, they did not go for the pool table only duct tape, jewelery and blood stained clothing, which was stated on the warrant.

He said the pool table was not at the house on May 9, 2007.