Police Commissioner Tyrone Griffith said Wednesday there is no clear evidence at this point of a serial killer targeting sex workers in The City, following the gruesome slaying of a Jamaican woman, reputed to be a sex worker.
Detectives were seeking to determine whether there are any patterns that might link her death to a rash of similar attacks on women who ply their trade at night on City streets – all between the months of July and September.
But an expert on human trafficking has warned that numerous non-national women, particularly from Jamaica, are vulnerable to gross acts of violence because of their fragile economic situation.
On Monday, police were called in to investigate the grim discovery of a naked and decomposing female body at Beckwith Street, Bridgetown, in an abandoned house.
Police have not yet released the name of the latest victim because her family in Jamaica had not yet been notified at the time of publication. Barbados TODAY has learned the woman was well known to Nelson Street residents as ‘Jamaikey’.
Since then, speculation on social media has been rife with at least one radio station claiming sex workers in the Bay Street and Nelson Street areas fear that a serial killer may be on the prowl.
“I can’t say to you at this point that we can conclude that there is a serial killer,” Commissioner Griffith told Barbados TODAY on Wednesday afternoon.
“What I will say though, is that obviously our investigations are looking at commonalities to see if there is any relationship, so we are looking at things like victimology and so on, but at this point, I think it is too early for us to conclude that there is a serial killer.”
Griffith revealed that the officers under his command have seen no significant increase in violence against women in The City, although there have been “one or two instances where people have been charged” for crimes against alleged sex workers.
“I think these particular cases stand out and that would happen anywhere, whether in The City or otherwise. If you see females being the victims of serious crime it would stand out, but overall no, there is not that rise in the incidents of violent crime against women in The City,” the Commissioner explained.
“From time to time, we have had incidents involving persons who would be commonly described as sex workers. We have had incidents surrounding them, but again, not in any alarming number over the last year or two.”
Still, the raw details of the most recent incidents bear some similarities, including the July 27, 2020 discovery of 31-year-old Olivia Carter whose naked body was found in the nearby area of Henry’s Lane. Two months later, 61-year-old Celia Hoyte’s body was recovered from a cliff near the Animal Flower Cave in St Lucy, also naked. The year before, in August 2019, a 27-year-old Guyanese, Annastacia Angel, was found on a Christ Church beach behind a guest house close to a hotel.
In the early hours of Saturday, August 8 last year, well-known sex worker Nakita ‘Muscle Katt’ Jones barely escaped death when she was attacked and stabbed multiple times on the compound of the old Ministry of Health at Jemmott’s Lane, St Michael.
Dr Olivia Smith, Executive Director of the Caribbean Anti-Human Trafficking Foundation, revealed that with numerous bars in the city closed over the lockdown period, women have been struggling to make ends meet and resorting to more desperate means of making money.
“There is no evidence to suggest that there is any particular person or group,” she told Barbados TODAY. “What the evidence suggests strongly is that because these girls are more vulnerable because of the economic fallout from the COVID and the lockdowns, that more men are exploiting them and taking even more advantage than they normally would of their vulnerabilities.
“So they are refusing to pay the girls and this could be migrants involved in legal work and not only suspected trafficked women, but they are refusing to pay them and we are getting too many complaints of the girls being beaten and these are just individuals who take it upon themselves to exploit them.”
Barbados TODAY has learned that in some cases, women who were once paid around $50 for certain sexual favours are now accepting as little as $35 to help them buy food and pay rent.
While acknowledging that she came into contact with the latest homicide victim while distributing food during the lockdown, Dr Smith could only confirm that ‘Jamaikey’ was well known among some members of the local Jamaican community.
“There has been significant vulnerability,” the UWI researcher revealed. “Many of them cannot go home, they don’t have means to go home or they don’t want to go home, because the assumption is that things are worse off home in Jamaica especially, because the majority of girls we are seeing in this situation are from Jamaica.
“These girls are now being further sexually exploited because they need to pay their rent, they need to pay for their food in a situation that is extremely bad. The landlords are threatening to throw out a lot of them. So they are willingly putting themselves in danger. They are willingly putting themselves in exploitative situations that they normally would avoid.”
The migration specialist acknowledged that police often find it difficult to address such instances because of the women’s reluctance to speak up about their experiences in a legal system where witness testimonies are extremely important.
Commissioner Griffith also complained that officers are only called in when “situations really go awry”.
“You don’t get much cooperation [on sex trafficking], but it is an area that we still pursue, we look keenly at when we see certain things taking place,” he added.
