BASSETERRE, St. KITTS – THE man who was taken into custody last Tuesday (Apr. 13) to assist police with their investigations into the Half Moon Bay double homicide was discharged last week.
According to Police Press and Public Relations Officer Inspector Vaughan Henderson, the man was discharged on Friday, April 16 “pending further investigations”.
The partly-decomposed bodies of James and Mildred Daniel were found in their daughter’s newly-constructed residence in Half Moon Bay on Sunday, April 11, after a neighbour reported that a foul stench was coming from the house.
On investigation, police reportedly saw the body of Mildred (75) lying on a bed and that of her 77-year-old husband on the floor beside the bed. A spent shell was also reportedly found in the bedroom.
The couple was last seen and heard from on Tuesday (Apr. 6), and an alarm was raised after Mildred had not turned up for a Jehovah Witness meeting.
In a recent press release, Inspector Henderson stated that Barbados-based forensic pathologist Dr. Stephen Jones performed autopsies on the couple’s bodies and found that they both died as a result of haemorrhage and shock due to gunshot injuries.
A close relative of James told SKNVibes that the couple’s daughter and son had arrived in St. Kitts from England and are making arrangements to transport the bodies to England for funeral service and burial.
The relative reiterated that family members are of the view that the motive for the killing of the elderly couple was not robbery, based on the fact that a quantity of English and Eastern Caribbean currencies were in a bag within the same bedroom where they were killed.
“Let’s suppose it was robbery and they did not see the bag with the money, why did they shoot my uncle behind his ear and his wife in her chest? Are we to conclude that my uncle and his wife had recognised the person or persons who killed them?” the relative said.
According to an article published by the Birmingham Mail, headlined “Man in custody over murder of Small Heath couple in St. Kitts”, James and Mildred had moved from St. Kitts to Birmingham in the 1950s where they lived in Taywood Drive, Small Heath.
“Mildred was a caretaker at various city primary schools including Yew Tree and Regents Park. James was a floor manager at the Birmingham engineering firm Imperial Metal Industry,” the article read.
