Sanitation workers discover lifeless body in North River

A dead body is possibly the last thing a sanitation worker would wish to find while carrying out his or her duties. But for some workers, that is exactly what happened last Wednesday morning.

Eight persons from the sanitation department had set about trimming the river bank of the North River early that morning, when shortly after 9 a.m.,{{more}} they discovered the lifeless body of Georgetown resident St Clair Billy, lying face down in an area just across the road from St Joseph’s Convent Kingstown.

Redemption Sharpes resident, Tyrone Labbay told SEARCHLIGHT that he was raking up some grass on the riverbank when he discovered the body, which he then pointed out to his colleagues.

“… I telling them fellas; look a fella lie down in the water like he die,” Labbay recounted.

He also revealed that it was his friend, Kenneth Ragguette, who went to call the police.

“I aint really scared ahna. I accustom watch them thing here, but if it was me alone, I woulda scared, I woulda run,” Ragguette said.

“When Tyrone call say look somebody lie down here, I come up think is joke. I there trimming and I smell the place smelling fresh and I tell he the place smell fresh and he tell me … is river we dey into.

“I come up there and I see the person there lie down pan dem belly. I say ‘hear na, get up from here na man. We working here’ and the man ain’t getting up.”

It was at that point that Ragguette said he went nearby to inform persons that they had found a dead body and to call the police.

According to Inspector Trevor Bailey from the Major Crimes Unit (MCU), Billy, who is believed to be in his fifties, was found naked, with his clothes and belongings nearby on a stone in the river.

He also noted that the body showed no sign of foul play.

“On examination of the body, we did not see any marks of violence; no visible sign of any injury was present on the body,” he said.

The inspector added that they have not received any missing person reports and that the body has been taken to the mortuary to determine the cause of death.(BK)