BY: Michael Jordan
I’m confident that by the time this story appears online today, the sleuths at CID Headquarters will know for sure who killed Dr. Colin Roach.
I’ve been around. I think I’ve seen something like this before. The minute I read the details of Dr. Roach’s murder, another case sprung to mind.
Perhaps it’s because that victim, like Dr. Roach, had also held a senior position in the heath sector. The two men would almost certainly have crossed paths.
That killing happened on the night of May 14, 2012. I was at my desk when a colleague of mine rushed into the editorial department, and excitedly announced that a businessman had just been murdered.
He said that the businessman, who turned out to be an insurance executive and Georgetown Hospital official, was driving through a depressed community in Georgetown, when bandits stabbed him in the chest and made off with the victim’s car.
The badly wounded man, my colleague said, managed to make his way to a Main Street Hotel and tell his story, before succumbing at the GPHC. But to me, there was something odd about that story.
I immediately asked our company driver to take me through the community where the official was attacked while allegedly driving.
We eventually arrived. The street where the ‘robbers’ had allegedly cornered their victim was dismal and unlit. It was an area known for crime. Why, I wondered, had the victim driven through this area at night?
Could there be something more to this ‘robbery’ and murder?
I got the answer three days later. The insurance 44-year-old executive and GPHC official had been lured to his death.
His killer was a young man whom the executive had befriended. The two had driven to the depressed community. The two had argued, and the ‘friend’ had stabbed the official, then made off with his car.
The vehicle was later found abandoned at a Berbice location. The suspect was eventually arrested, charged, and convicted.
But let’s get back to 44-year-old Dr. Roach.
One of the physician’s male employees found the 49-year-old doctor’s battered and bloody corpse on the floor of his Duke Street, Kingston office at around 22. 20 hrs last Tuesday.
He was lying face-up. He appeared to have been struck on the left side of his face repeatedly. His pants were pulled down to his knees, and a covid-19 vaccination card had been placed neatly on his stomach.
His killer, or killers, had apparently made off with two cellphones and his white Audi SUV, PXX 4000.
This morning, that vehicle was found abandoned on the Scoonard Road, West Bank Demerara.
Dr. Roach’s two employees have told police that they last saw him alive around 15:00 hrs last Tuesday, when he closed his clinic.
The employee who found Dr. Roach’s body said he and his colleague had left the physician in his office.
The employee further stated that he retired to his living quarters, located on the top flat of the building while his colleague went out.
The employee said that at around 20:00hrs, he saw a man leaving the building. The man allegedly re-entered the clinic about seven minutes later.
Around 22:18hrs, the employee allegedly heard Roach’s SUV driving away from in front of the building. He allegedly peeped outside, and saw the vehicle heading north.
According to the worker, he later observed that Dr. Roach had apparently forgotten to turn off the lights in his office. He allegedly called his employer, but his cellphone rang out.
Using his phone the employee allegedly informed the other male staffer, who was out, that he would enter the office and switch the lights off.
It was then that he allegedly found Dr. Roach’s body.
KILLER’S MISTAKES?
Now why am I so confident that the police will easily break this case?
First, there is nothing to suggest that ‘bandits’ forced their way into Dr. Roach’s office and murdered him.
Bandits carry guns or knives.
This only leaves one suggestion: The biomedical expert was slain by an individual or individuals he knew.
The apparent absence of ‘defensive wounds’ on the victim’s arms would suggest that he did not feel threatened by the ‘intruder’, and therefore did not raise his hands to protect himself.
HOW THE COPS WILL BREAK THIS CASE
ALIBIS: They will look at the alibis of Dr. Roach’s close associates, and timeline of their actions and movements.
For instance, if a suspect claimed he made a phone call at a specific time to the victim, or to others at the time Dr. Roach was slain, the alibi would be broken if phone records or a check of his/her phone contradicts this. They are likely to check on two specific calls that were allegedly made. Phone records may also reveal the time of Dr. Roach’s last phone calls, outgoing and incoming
CCTV FOOTAGE:
One big mistake the killers might have made was carrying out their deed in an area that is filled with CCTV camera coverage in different locations.
That footage will work well reveal the identity of the individual (including the Body Mass Index-BMI) who made off with the doctor’s vehicle, what time it was ‘stolen’, the direction the killers drove.
Surely if the suspect frequents the doctor’s office, there will be employees there who would be familiar with his BMI, the way he walk and other physical distinctions even if a face mask was worn at the time the suspect left the office.
FORENSIC EVIDENCE:
It is quite likely that the killers left some forensic evidence at the scene, or left similar evidence on their clothing. From the state in which the corpse was found, that may include DNA evidence. Added to that, with the discovery of Dr. Roach’s vehicle, the police work we can expect, will become a but easier.
DR. ROACH’S PERSONAL LIFE
In a case in which persons who knew the victim are the prime suspects, the detectives will seek to ascertain which individuals may have had a reason for killing Dr. Roach.
This will involve looking into the personal life of Dr. Colin Roach, who was callously murdered, last Tuesday.