Four Scotland Yard detectives and two forensic experts from Interpol have arrived in Jamaica to help investigate the killing of Pakistan’s World Cup cricket coach after police turned up no suspects or motives, authorities said on Tuesday.
The Scotland Yard detectives, including a senior murder investigator, were briefed on Tuesday and will be reviewing security-camera footage from the hotel where Bob Woolmer was found strangled on March 19, said Mark Shields, Jamaica’s deputy police commissioner, himself a Scotland Yard veteran.
”Clearly they are going to be looking at the main lines of inquiry but I’ll also get them to review the technical evidence,” Shields said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.
Woolmer died a day after his powerhouse team was ousted in the World Cup against underdog Ireland. A Jamaican pathologist initially ruled the cause of the death was ”inconclusive” but four days later announced he was strangled.
Shields said the British team will also help examine theories that Woolmer may have been poisoned before he was strangled. The Britons arrived on Monday night, led by Superintendent John Sweeney of London’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command.
”We’ve actually said that the injuries to Bob Woolmer were not visible externally, and therefore … it’s possible that he was in some way incapacitated apart from the manual strangulation and asphyxiation,” Shields said.
Two forensic experts from Interpol, the France-based international police agency, also arrived in Kingston late on Monday to assist with DNA analysis, according to Jamaican authorities.
The British detectives will review the homicide probe so far.
”In any murder investigation in the United Kingdom where it’s not been solved with in the first few days then you can expect after seven days there will be a review,” Shields said.
Police have been reviewing closed-circuit security video from the hotel to see if Woolmer’s killer or killers were captured on the recordings. Shields has said that police also have Woolmer’s computer and were examining the hard drive. Investigators are awaiting toxicology reports.
Woolmer’s death shocked the international cricket community and has cast a pall over the World Cup, being played in nine Caribbean countries through late April.
Shields has said investigators have taken roughly 50 witness statements and questioned another 50 to 100 people.
He added Jamaican police likely will travel to South Africa to take statements from Woolmer’s widow and others.
Woolmer’s body remains in Jamaica pending a coroner’s investigation. It is being stored at a Kingston funeral home. ‒ Sapa-AP