Cesspool death at UTech
THE body of a man accused of breaking into cars on the University of Technology (UTech) campus Saturday night was fished from a waste water pit yesterday in which he attempted to escape after being cornered by an angry mob.
Police yesterday assumed that most of the mob, that lit fire to dry grass surrounding the pit to prevent the escape of Ricardo Anglin, 23 and an accomplice, were UTech students. But up to last night, none had come forward to give a statement on that incident.
A police spokesman said that in the face of the silence, they were not certain whether they were investigating an accidental drowning or a case of murder.
“We are treating it as drowning until the post-mortem proves otherwise,” Detective Sergeant Basil McLeish of the Papine Police Station told the Sunday Observer.
Anglin’s body was recovered from the pit late afternoon after a cesspool company had used pumps and other equipment to drain the stagnant pool at the northeastern end of the campus.
There were suggestions earlier that a second body was in the pit, but it was not found after all the water was drained into an adjoining soakaway.
Anglin, who lived in Mona Commons, and his alleged accomplices were apparently fleeing a chasing mob when they reached an empty pit adjoining the one in which his body was found. It was then that the mob lit fire to the dry grass around the pit to prevent an escape.
Said Inspector Orlando Grant of the Papine Police Station: “What I understand is that two to three men were spotted breaking into several cars at about 2:30 am and an alarm was raised. The men who were being chased ran to this section of the campus in their bid to escape…
“The report I got is that students set fire to the dried grass that surrounded the edge of the pit to prevent the men from escaping and there are also reports that stones and bottles were thrown at them.”
Anglin apparently ran in the direction of the waste water pit, unaware in the darkness that it was full.
Anglin’s body, Inspector Grant said, had a cut near the right eye. But the police could not immediately determine whether it was caused before his death or during the search while rescuers prodded and poked the depth of the pit.
A large number of cars were parked on the campus Friday night because of a function put on by the Faculty of Engineering and Computing at the Student Social Activities Centre.
Yesterday, UTech’s communications manager, Hector Wheeler, confirmed that at least five cars belonging to students were, in fact, broken into.
“We had reports of up to 25, but we have only confirmed five.”
Wheeler, like the police, was unable to get definitive information from students about the incident.
The police initially sought help from the York Park and Half-Way-Tree fire stations, as well as the National Water Commission (NWC) in the recovery effort. But their equipment was apparently inadequate for the effluent. So St Andrew Cesspool Emptier was called in to help drain the pit of thousands of gallons of grime and stagnant water.
“It’s a huge task,” Inspector Grant said. “The police came on the scene from about 8:30 am and a team from the NWC came a little later, but we had to seek further help from the fire stations and the cesspool emptier.”
The search was officially called off at about 6:00 pm but only minutes after, a mini-van drove up with at least four persons — one of whom was identified only as Anglin’s “former stepmother”.
The grief-stricken woman cried aloud inside the van and refused to give the police any details regarding her relationship with the deceased.
“A mi daughter bredda,” she cried, then asked that she be transported back to nearby Papine Square.