Anguilla’s Silence After Kenny Mitchel’s Death: A Family Betrayed, A Community Still Waiting for Justice Share More than six years after the killing of Anguillian hotel worker Kenny Mitchel , the island remains shrouded in a silence that many residents describe as unbearable. Mitchel, a young father and beloved member of the West End community, died after a violent encounter with American tourist Scott Hapgood at the Malliouhana Resort in 2019. What followed, or rather, what didn’t follow, has left a wound that has never healed. For many Anguillians, this case has become a symbol of how quickly justice can evaporate when power, privilege and international politics collide. Hapgood was charged with manslaughter and initially appeared in court, but he later stopped returning to Anguilla, claiming he feared for his safety. Authorities insisted those fears were unfounded, yet no trial ever took place. No verdict. No accountability. No closure. Inst...
Residents demand transparency after a cemetery worker stumbles upon a pit filled with infant remains.
The discovery of fifty‑six bodies in a cemetery in Cumuto, Trinidad and Tobago has sent a shockwave through the country, not only because of the number, but because fifty of them were infants. The bodies were found after a gardener noticed two men digging a grave without permission. When questioned, the men reportedly admitted they were disposing of children’s bodies, prompting police to intervene. What officers uncovered was a shallow pit containing dozens of remains, some wrapped, some tagged, some showing signs of previous post‑mortem examinations. It was a scene that residents described as overwhelming, the smell of decomposition hanging in the air just a short walk from the local police station.
Authorities have confirmed that the bodies appear to be unclaimed remains, possibly linked to a funeral home contracted to carry out pauper’s burials. But the scale of the discovery has raised far more questions than answers. A pauper’s burial is meant to be a dignified, state‑funded service for those with no relatives or financial means. It is not meant to be a mass grave. It is not meant to involve fifty infants. And it is certainly not meant to be carried out by two young men “hustling” for cash, as they allegedly told police. Investigators are now trying to determine how long the bodies had been accumulating, who authorised their disposal, and whether any institution — hospital, morgue, funeral home or state agency — failed in its duty of care.
The most disturbing mystery is the infants. Police have not yet said where they came from, why they were unclaimed, or whether their deaths were natural, medical or suspicious. Trinidad and Tobago does not have a known crisis of infant mortality on this scale, which makes the discovery even more unsettling. If these were hospital deaths, why were they not properly recorded and buried? If they were unclaimed, how did fifty families fail to come forward? And if they were not unclaimed, then who decided they should be discarded in a single six‑foot grave? The silence around these questions has fuelled public anger, speculation and fear, especially in a country already grappling with violence, strained institutions and a growing distrust of authority.
For now, the police have promised a full investigation, and the government has urged calm. But the implications are far‑reaching. This case exposes potential weaknesses in the oversight of funeral homes, the management of unclaimed bodies, and the transparency of state‑funded burials. It also forces a deeper reckoning: how could dozens of infants slip through the cracks of a system meant to protect the most vulnerable? Until investigators can trace each body back to its origin, the country is left with a haunting truth — that somewhere, somehow, fifty children lived and died without the dignity every human being deserves, and their final resting place became a shallow pit in a quiet cemetery. Trinidad and Tobago now waits for answers, and for accountability, in a case that has already shaken the nation’s conscience.
