Mark Bassant
Editor-in-Chief, Research Bureau
Two weeks after 23-year-old Andrea Bharatt was abducted and her body was later found on the Heights of Aripo, a man from Malabar must be charged with her murder.
A 35-year-old female suspect will also be charged with receiving stolen property.
Instructions to charge the duo came after investigators for murder met with DPP Roger Gaspard yesterday.
Police told Guardian Media that they had been preparing until yesterday to lodge the charges, which were expected to be done last night or early this morning.
They will appear before a magistrate sometime this afternoon.
Guardian Media understands that the female suspect is the girlfriend of the murder accused and also lives in Malabar.
According to senior police sources, the murder accused was in the vehicle carrying a fake taxi sign with the main suspect, 37-year-old Joel Balcon, when they abducted Bharatt on January 29 in King Street, Arima.
For six days, police searched several wooded areas in East Trinidad in hopes of finding Bharatt alive.
But hopes were dashed when her decomposed body was found in the Heights of Aripo.
Her family members were later able to identify her by the dress code.
Not only did her death cause anger and sadness throughout the country, but since then there have been constant candlelight vigils as many people have talked about changes in the law.
The murder suspect, along with Balcon and five others, were in police custody two days after Bharatt went missing.
Balcon, who according to investigators was the mastermind in the abduction of Bharatt, was brought to the Eric Williams Medical Science Complex hours after he was picked up by police.
Senior sources say Balcon, who was known among police as a sex, drug, firearms, robbery and robbery criminal, was in an unconscious state until he died Monday last year.
He was also paralyzed.
Balcon killed
A post-mortem examination on Balcon’s body by pathologist Dr Eastlyn McDonald Burris at the Forensic Science Center in St James’s revealed that Balcon died as a result of multiple trauma to his body.
The injuries he sustained could have been the result of a beating he allegedly sustained.
Guardian Media also learns that toxicology and drug screening tests were also performed on Balcon’s body as well as a COVID-19 test.
The body of Balcon was identified by his father Trevor Neal and Uncle Marvin Bramble. The results of the post-mortem were later handed over to PC Williams.
One of the other suspects Andrew Morris died at the hospital on Monday, February 1, presumably from injuries he sustained in police custody.
The post-mortem done by the state, and one independently revealed that he died of blunt force.
According to the first post-mortem done at the Forensic Science Center, Morris suffered brain fractures, several broken ribs, bleeding from internal organs, burning on the back (presumably from a taser) contusion to the right eye, bleeding on the brain as well as damage to his shoulders and legs.
His family members claimed he was beaten by Special Operations Response Team (SORT) officers at his home in Tumpuna Road in Arima.
Bharatt will be executed after a funeral service tomorrow.