BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – POLICE have confirmed that the human remains discovered in a 180-foot well in the White gate area is that of the missing teenager, Jakeel Alford.
Police Press and Public Information Officer (PIO) Sergeant Stephen Hector this morning (June 19) informed this media house, in a one line statement, that the remains were positively identified as the missing 17-year-old from Willets Project in St. Paul’s.
The PIO did not state what method was used to identify the remains, but SKNVibes however learnt that it was by the fingerprints of one of Alford’s hands that was not entirely destroyed when the body was burnt.
This information was confirmed by one of Alford’s brothers, Meshach, who said that the police had informed him of their findings.
The former Verchild’s High School student had been missing since Thursday, June 7, 2012, and numerous search parties by family members, headed by Meshach, were launched to find him.
According to Meshach, members of the Police Force, along with a tracking dog, had twice assisted them in the search for his brother.
But it was not until one week later (June 14) that his remains were discovered and extracted from a 180-foot well within a tall-grassy patch of land in the White Gate area in Dieppe Bay.
Speaking with Sergeant Hector on that day, this publication was told that while conducting a joint operation in the White Gate area, police officers and soldiers discovered a burnt area that aroused their suspicion of an illegal activity.
“Earlier this morning, sometime before 10 o’clock, officers of the St. Kitts-Nevis Defence Force, whilst on a joint operation with officers from the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force, came across an area in the White Gate area close to the mill some 250 feet away from the main road.
“On that site in question, we found an area that had a burnt patch and also a well in which examinations are currently ongoing with regards to the find. But I can report at this stage that we have asked for assistance from the Fire and Rescue Services. They have been summoned to the scene and we are about to do some rappelling in that location to actually retrieve and try to identify what may be suspected down at the bottom of that well.”
He also said that between the well and the burnt area they had found some particles that was later “denoted to be human remains, and was actually identified as human remains by our forensic examiner Lieutenant Alexander”.
A section from the Fire and Rescue Services were summoned to the scene and one member rappelled down the well where he located the remains.
SKNVibes learnt that the body seemed to have been dismembered before being burnt and thrown into the well, because the remains had to be placed in a number of buckets and taken to the surface where members of the Crime Scene Unit conducted further investigations.
Alford was the second teen to have gone missing in as many months and his death takes to 10 the number of murders committed in the Federation for this year; eight on St. Kitts and two on Nevis.
On Saturday (Apr. 28), Dylon Clarke of Church Ground, Nevis was last seen in the vicinity of Moon’s Bar in Church Ground at approximately 6:00 p.m.
Since then, a number of searches were conducted by family members, friends, the police and the Nevis Disaster Management Department to find the teenager.
Assistance was also gained from a K-9 Unit of the USVI Police Department, which provided a cadaver tracking dog with two handlers, but they also failed to locate Clarke.
The family has posted an EC$10 000 reward for information leading to his find and such information can be passed on to the nearest police station or to a family member at 760-8095.
