Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A mi­nor is ex­pect­ed to be charged with the mur­der of his friend, 15-year-old Beris Joseph. Joseph, from Gold­en Lane, was To­ba­go’s first homi­cide for 2025.

Joseph, a fourth-form stu­dent of Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School, was found dead on Jan­u­ary 4 in the Mt Hay area, lo­cat­ed be­tween Pa­tience Hill and Black Rock.

Res­i­dents re­port­ed hear­ing gun­shots overnight, and his life­less body was dis­cov­ered on the road­way around 8 am with gun­shot wounds.

An au­top­sy con­duct­ed at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Mor­tu­ary on Jan­u­ary 9 re­vealed that Joseph had been shot mul­ti­ple times in the head and neck.

On Fri­day, DPP Roger Gas­pard, SC, ad­vised homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors to pro­ceed with charg­ing the ju­ve­nile for Joseph’s mur­der.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Joseph’s aunt An­gela Tay­lor said the fam­i­ly was dev­as­tat­ed but try­ing to cope. When asked if the fam­i­ly felt jus­tice had been served, she said it was heart­break­ing be­cause the sus­pect was a close friend of Joseph.

She ad­mit­ted, “I know both of them were good, good good (sic) friends. That sounds shock­ing to me. We won­der­ing how (the sus­pect and Joseph) reached to that place … I don’t know what to say. It sound­ing so strange.”

She be­lieves there is more to the sto­ry but is in dis­be­lief the sus­pect is al­leged­ly be­hind the killing. She de­scribed the sus­pect as “a re­al good friend to Beris. He used to come here, and any lit­tle things Beris had to do, he go (sic) help him do this or that. We don’t know noth­ing be­hind that (the death) as yet.”

Tay­lor re­peat­ed­ly said, “I don’t know, nah, I don’t know,” be­fore con­ced­ing, “What will we do? We can’t do noth­ing. We are try­ing to cope with the sit­u­a­tion.”

She said she was con­fused over what went wrong be­tween Beris and the sus­pect that al­leged­ly led to his death. Joseph was laid to rest three days ago af­ter a farewell cer­e­mo­ny with class­mates, close friends, and fam­i­ly.

A gris­ly video cir­cu­lat­ing hours af­ter Joseph’s death showed Joseph be­ing tor­tured sup­pos­ed­ly mo­ments be­fore he was killed. He was found dead in the same clothes he was seen wear­ing in the video.

Snr Supt Earl Elie said Joseph had been in­volved in cer­tain ac­tiv­i­ties that made him vul­ner­a­ble. Speak­ing at a To­ba­go Stake­hold­ers Se­cu­ri­ty meet­ing on Jan­u­ary 9, Elie ex­plained how gangs have been ex­ploit­ing “im­pres­sion­able” teenagers.

“At that age, a young man is very im­pres­sion­able. So, imag­ine you take a firearm and place it in the hands of a young, im­pres­sion­able guy … That cre­ates a cer­tain sense of false pow­er in that young guy.”

Elie said that gangs now de­lib­er­ate­ly tar­get­ed teens by ma­nip­u­lat­ing them. He warned, “The un­der­world is get­ting to our chil­dren. We, as par­ents and adults, need to do a lit­tle bit more.”

He al­so called for greater vig­i­lance from par­ents. “Par­ent­ing is im­por­tant. You re­al­ly see your child if you hide and look at them. You may not be­lieve that is your child.”