A serving park ranger from the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been handed a suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay a substantial fine after pleading guilty to stealing thousands of dollars worth of government-owned maintenance gear from the Layou Petroglyph Park, a protected cultural and tourism site on the island’s Leeward coast.
Forty-four-year-old Augustus Alexander, a local resident of Layou, entered his guilty plea during a recent hearing at the Kingstown Magistrate Court, where the case was overseen by Senior Magistrate Tammika McKenzie. Court documents outline that the theft took place between December 29 and 30, 2025, after Alexander trespassed on the park grounds to take the equipment. The stolen items included an orange-and-white Stihl weed trimmer, a hand pick, a red gasoline jug, a bottle of branded Stihl lubricating oil, and a roll of nylon trimmer line. The combined value of all stolen property, which is officially owned by the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, amounts to Eastern Caribbean (EC) $3,235, equivalent to roughly 1,200 USD.
As part of his official role, Alexander was tasked with supervising all tourism sites across the Leeward side of the main island of St. Vincent, placing him in a position of public trust that gave him familiarity with the park’s layout and security protocols. The timeline of the incident traces back to December 28, 2025, when Anica Hackshaw, the on-site attendant for the Layou Petroglyph Park, locked up the park’s storage building and ended her shift at approximately 1:30 p.m. When Hackshaw returned to work at 9:15 a.m. the following day, she immediately noticed that the storage building had been broken into and ransacked, with all the aforementioned maintenance equipment missing from its secured storage.
Hackshaw quickly notified Shemron Williams, another senior park ranger, who immediately contacted local law enforcement to launch an investigation. Officer Keil of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force and Williams conducted an initial walkthrough of the crime scene, confirming that all the listed items had been stolen from the site. It would take nearly five months for investigators to close the case: on May 15, acting on a credible tip from an informant, Officer Keil obtained a formal search warrant to search Alexander’s private residence. During the search, law enforcement recovered almost all of the stolen equipment, including the orange-and-white trimmer, five-litre gas jug, Stihl oil bottle, and nylon roll, matching the descriptions provided by the park staff.
Following the recovery of the stolen property, Alexander was taken into custody and transported to the Layou Police Station for formal processing. He was informed of the burglary charge against him, given a standard police caution, and interviewed with Carlton Browne, a local Justice of the Peace, present as required by law. During the interview, Alexander voluntarily provided a full written confession admitting to the theft, after which he was formally arrested and charged with the offense.
In her final sentencing, Magistrate McKenzie handed Alexander a 12-month prison sentence that was suspended for a period of 18 months, meaning he will not serve active jail time so long as he does not commit any further offenses during the suspension period. She additionally ordered Alexander to pay an immediate fine of EC$450; failure to pay the fine by the required deadline will result in an automatic six-month active prison sentence. As part of the court order, all recovered stolen equipment has been ordered to be returned to Layou Petroglyph Park to resume its use for site maintenance.