Coroner’s inquest into ‘Big Joe’s’ death

Director of Public Prosecutions, Geoffrey Henderson assured that the incident has not been “swept under the mat.”

He revealed to Sunday Newsday that a Coroner’s inquest has been ordered to determine whether or not charges would be laid against two men ages 24 and 25 who were arrested subsequent to the incident.

Police were called to Joseph’s apartment by a person who claimed that he and another man had been locked in an apartment and were unable to get out. They told police they had stabbed Joseph.

Officers rushed to his apartment where they used a bolt cutter to open the apartment’s door. They found Joseph’s nude body.

The men claimed they had been hired by Joseph to paint his apartment and on arrival at the apartment, 42-year-old Joseph padlocked the place, stripped and attempted to sexually abuse them.

They said that to protect themselves, they stabbed Joseph and then telephoned the police.

Morvant residents who have remained perturbed by Joseph’s death still talk about him, and their discomfort with his previous activities in the area.

“We were uncomfortable with him in the area, he was known to be a predator at times. You could always see young boys in and out there,” one woman said.

Another woman revealed that her son who was at the YTC a few years ago said he remembered seeing Joseph there very often.

“He told me that Joseph would always try to start up conversations with them and he felt strange talking to a big man like that,” she said.

Another resident who makes his living as a barber told Sunday Newsday the street children in Port-of-Spain were very scared when they knew he was coming.

“Anytime you did not see children on the streets you know Big Joe was in town,” he said.

Some of them questioned his role in the Coast Guard service as he had sexual charges pending against him.

“How come he was able to still be in the service?” “With those charges if it was anybody else I am sure they would have been kicked out,” one man said

When that question was forwarded to a senior member of the TT Coast Guard, he said: “He was not convicted so that did not prevent him from doing his service in the Coast Guard.”

Some of them remembered never seeing him in his uniform and wondered if he ever fulfilled his duties as a Coast Guard.

“We want to know what kind of Coast Guard he was because every time you used to see him, he was in normal clothes,” another man said.