The Royal Barbados Police Force will be launching a full internal investigation into the circumstances that led to the death of a Guyanese woman who was chopped to death earlier this week.
The Acting Assistant Commissioner with responsibility for crime, Mark Thompson, confirmed to the SATURDAY SUN yesterday that the investigation into Brenda Belle’s death would be carried out to make sure there were “no deficiencies” in the way investigators carried out their duties.
Belle, of St Barnabas, St Michael, was slashed to death while taking refuge in the home of a friend, Herman Bentick, at Cutting Road, Haggatt Hall, in the same parish, on Tuesday night. She was 64.
Her killer stormed into the house, inflicting lethal wounds about her entire body, allegedly with a cutlass.
Belle had moved away from her home and into Bentick’s after surviving a violent attack by the same alleged perpetrator last Saturday night in the Fairchild Street bus terminal, where she received stab injuries.
That assault was reported to police, and Belle came under attack again three nights later, but did not survive the second time.
Thompson said that although an internal investigation into police methods was nothing new, Belle’s death had attracted public attention, and would be looked into.
