分类： society

Nearly 36 years after he brutally killed his three-year-old toddler and hid the child’s body, a convicted murderer has received a revised prison sentence that will see him walk free in less than four years. The outcome comes after a landmark judicial shift that has opened the door to resentencing for dozens of death row inmates whose sentences were previously converted to life imprisonment.

The case in question centers on 73-year-old Phinis Warren, who was originally handed a death sentence for the 1988 murder of his young son, Ronald Koylass. The grim details of the crime, laid out in original court proceedings, paint a disturbing picture: after taking custody of Ronald in mid-1988, neighbors repeatedly documented clear signs of abuse on the toddler, including burst lips and a missing tooth. Witnesses also recalled Warren making explicit comments justifying violent discipline against children.

By October 1988, Ronald had vanished entirely. When police first questioned Warren, he spun a false story that he had handed the child over to an unknown man he claimed was Ronald’s biological father, a lead that investigators were never able to verify or trace. Under further interrogation, Warren eventually confessed: the boy had died while in his care in late September 1988, and he had stuffed the toddler’s body into a maroon bag before dumping it at Mora Dam using a hand-built bamboo raft. To this day, despite extensive search efforts, Ronald’s remains have never been recovered.

Warren was formally charged with murder and went to trial at the San Fernando High Court, where a jury found him guilty in May 1991. He was sentenced to death, and his appeal against the conviction was rejected by the country’s Appeal Court in 1994. Four years later, a landmark ruling by the Privy Council – the highest appellate body for many former British Caribbean territories – in the Jamaican case Pratt and Morgan v Attorney General of Jamaica changed the trajectory of his sentence. The ruling held that executing prisoners who had waited more than five years on death row constituted cruel and inhumane treatment, leading to Warren’s death sentence being commuted to 75 years of hard labor.

In 2023, another landmark Privy Council ruling in the case of Naresh Boodram upended sentencing rules once again, establishing that inmates serving converted life sentences were eligible to apply for resentencing. The High Court identified 23 convicted murderers who qualified to have their sentences reviewed under the new ruling, and Warren was counted among that group.

During his resentencing hearing held this week, High Court Judge Hayden St Clair-Douglas reviewed the details of the case, the time Warren had already served, and the progress he had made in custody. Defense attorney Davina Inalsingh argued that a 45-year determinate sentence was the appropriate outcome for the case, a submission the judge ultimately accepted.

At the time of the resentencing, Warren had already spent 37 years and seven months behind bars. Judge St Clair-Douglas also deducted an additional four years from the sentence in recognition of documented rehabilitative progress Warren has made during his incarceration. When the math is finalized, Warren is left with just three years and five months remaining on his sentence before he is eligible for release.

In issuing the revised sentence, Judge St Clair-Douglas emphasized that the court did not minimize the gravity of Warren’s crime or the irreversible harm done by the killing of a defenceless child. He noted that the revised sentence was crafted to strike a careful balance between three core goals of criminal justice: punishing the offender for his crime, deterring others from committing similar acts of violence, and acknowledging the potential for rehabilitation even in the most serious of cases.

A large-scale coordinated search operation for two-year-old Angelo Tobias Plaza, who went missing from his Tobago home earlier this week, was forced to suspend water-based activities on Wednesday after rough ocean conditions and thick sargassum seaweed derailed diving efforts, with law enforcement vowing to continue exhaustive land searches to bring closure to the distraught family.

The disappearance unfolded on Monday evening, around 7:30 p.m., at the family’s residence on Goodwood Main Road, Goodwood. Twenty-two-year-old Kalifah Tobias, Angelo’s mother, and her husband Shannon Miller suddenly realized the toddler was nowhere to be found inside their home. The couple immediately conducted an immediate search of the surrounding neighborhood and checked in with local residents, but their frantic efforts to locate the young child turned up empty, prompting them to file a missing person report with police.

On Tuesday, during the first full day of searching, officers spotted what they believed to be the toddler’s body in the waters just off Goodwood Bay, but the shape slipped back beneath the surface before recovery teams could reach it. The discovery pushed law enforcement to expand the operation, bringing in support from the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force and the Coast Guard to comb both the coastal waters and the inland community where the family lives.

Acting Assistant Superintendent of Police Mahalia Bacchus told reporters Wednesday that authorities remain committed to exhausting every possible lead to resolve the case. “We understand the profound pain the parents are enduring, not knowing where their child is after he was reported missing, and after Tuesday’s sighting of what appeared to be a body in the water,” Bacchus said. “After discussions with partner state agencies, we made the decision to extend our search efforts, particularly focusing more thoroughly on land areas.”

She noted that the property’s surrounding dense bushes and overgrown foliage have not yet been fully combed, adding that teams are working to rule out the possibility that the child’s body washed ashore and became trapped in inland vegetation. “Our goal is to find answers and bring some measure of closure to this devastating situation for the family,” she added.

Though dive teams were on standby Wednesday to recover the potential remains, choppy seas and heavy accumulations of sargassum seaweed created unsafe, unworkable conditions for underwater searchers. The thick seaweed severely limits underwater visibility, while rough wave action made diving too dangerous to continue, forcing authorities to call off the water search shortly before 3 p.m. All available trained personnel are already on site, and teams are doing everything within their power to move the investigation forward, Bacchus confirmed.

As part of the ongoing investigation, authorities have already questioned the toddler’s mother and stepfather, and the probe remains active. Bacchus also issued a public appeal for any information that could help advance the case, asking community members and anyone who saw the child in the hours before his disappearance to contact authorities. Tips can be submitted anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 211, or directly to police by calling 999, she said.

A local water activity organization has already stepped forward to offer additional support to the search effort. Ricardo Alfred, owner of a local jet ski rental business and president of the Tobago Water and Trails Association, announced Wednesday that his group is prepared to deploy their members and equipment to assist in the search. “Jet skis are far more maneuverable than larger search vessels, they can navigate shallow waters that standard boats can’t access, and they handle rough sea conditions much better too,” Alfred explained, noting the association has supported recovery operations in similar cases in the past.

A 57-year-old Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) bus driver escaped without injury after an out-of-service bus he was operating burst into flames along Trinidad’s Priority Bus Route near the Mt Lambert traffic lights on Wednesday afternoon, leaving only a gutted vehicle and disrupted local traffic in its wake.

Speaking after the incident, driver Ricky Estrada, a six-year veteran of the PTSC based in Arima, expressed overwhelming gratitude for his safety. “GOD is good. I am happy to be alive,” he told reporters, noting that the empty bus was en route to the Chaguanas depot when the fire ignited at the rear of the vehicle around 1:15 p.m.

Estrada immediately grabbed the bus’s on-board fire extinguisher in an attempt to put out the blaze before the equipment ran out of agent. With the fire spreading rapidly, he evacuated the vehicle safely, then stood by a nearby lamppost to await emergency responders. Local police were first on scene to redirect traffic and dispatch a call to the Trinidad and Tobago Fire Service, which arrived shortly after to bring the fire under control.

When reporters from the Express arrived on scene at approximately 1:30 p.m., the bus was still actively burning. Photographs from the scene show extensive damage: the upper half and entire rear section of the bus were destroyed, leaving behind a pile of smoldering debris, charred metal and shattered glass. A nearby lamppost was blackened by fire damage, and overhead utility wires were singed, with several hanging loosely after the heat damaged their insulation.

The unexpected blaze sparked confusion among local residents, many of whom rushed out of their homes in the nearby Mt Hope and Mt Lambert communities after seeing smoke. Some mistakenly believed the neighboring Bermudez biscuit factory was on fire, while others assumed the smoke came from neighbors burning yard waste. Passing motorists also slowed to investigate the incident, adding to localized traffic disruption.

To ease congestion while emergency crews worked, traffic along the Priority Bus Route was rerouted through the Carib Brewery vicinity in Champs Fleurs onto the Eastern Main Road before rejoining the PBR further along the route. Maxi-taxi drivers and waiting passengers gathered nearby, speculating on whether anyone had been trapped on the burning bus.

A three-person fire crew led by Fire Sub Officer Crayson Balkaran, with officers Nesbitt and Forde, responded to the call from the Fire Service’s Port of Spain headquarters on Wrightson Road, receiving the alert around 1:41 p.m. The team confirmed no passengers were on board, a outcome that responding personnel called a major relief.

Following the incident, Estrada went to Mt Hope Hospital for a routine check-up after experiencing mild trauma from the event. He credits mandatory occupational health and safety training for helping him stay calm during the emergency. “We are given health and safety training. So I had the presence of mind to reach for the extinguisher. I am glad it was diesel fuel because it could have gotten far worse,” he explained. “Sometimes when we move buses to the depot, we have a mechanic or another employee on board. I’m so thankful no one else was here that day. It could have been detrimental.”

Estrada’s family shared his relief after learning he had escaped unhurt. “My wife said, ‘Thank God, nothing serious happened to you.’ My two children are happy nothing bad happened to their daddy,” he said. A man of faith, he noted that his religious community had supported him through the scare: “I am a member of Arima ‘Oracle of Praise’ or Arima Open Bible Church. I am covered under the blood. Jesus Christ is my protector.”

Estrada did note one point of concern, saying that the Fire Service “took a little long to respond” and could have arrived sooner to limit damage to the bus.

In an official statement released Wednesday, PTSC confirmed the details of the incident, noting that the bus was out of service at the time with no passengers on board. PTSC General Manager Patrick Gomez told reporters Wednesday that the corporation was “happy no one was on the bus. No one was injured. The driver was not injured.” The gutted bus has been moved to the PTSC’s Port of Spain depot, and the company’s engineering team is leading an investigation into the cause of the fire, working alongside relevant local authorities to identify what sparked the blaze.

“PTSC remains committed to the safety of its employees, passengers and the general public,” the corporation’s release added.

A violent home invasion in Penal has left three family members physically injured and psychologically traumatized, after four armed criminals broke into their residence, held the group hostage for 90 minutes, and stole thousands of dollars in valuables before fleeing.

In a first-hand interview with local media *Express* the day after the attack, one of the surviving victims described the perpetrators as pure evil, saying she fully expected to lose her life during the prolonged ordeal.

The attack unfolded in the early hours of Monday. Before gaining entry to the property, the intruders first poisoned the family’s pet Husky, Max, who was left dead outside the home after the incident. The group then forced open a back door to get inside, where they encountered two adult sisters and their teenage nephew. The criminals immediately bound the three hostages and began a violent search for $450,000 in cash they claimed was stored on the property.

Over the course of an hour and a half, the attackers, who were armed with a loaded gun and cutlasses, remained in constant cell phone contact with an off-site accomplice as they ransacked every room, tore through cupboards and drawers, and repeatedly beat and threatened the bound hostages. Recounting the terror, one sister said the criminals pressed a gun to her sibling’s head and gave her just five seconds to reveal the location of the rumored cash. They broke a heavy picture frame over the woman’s head, then dragged the teenage nephew into the room and beat him severely with both a cutlass and a broomstick. “I honestly thought that I was going to die,” the survivor told reporters. “When you see a gun in front of you and a man saying ‘Tonight you all will die,’ that terror doesn’t leave you. These men are devils walking on the earth. If you can beat women and a child that brutally, something is very wrong with you. You need God.

Despite repeated beatings and threats, the family maintained they had no such large sum of cash on the property. Refusing to believe their claims, the intruders continued their assault and search until they were forced to accept the money was not there. Before fleeing, the group stole all of the family’s gold jewelry, an undisclosed amount of U.S. currency, and roughly $50,000 in local Trinidad and Tobago dollars. They also stole one sister’s Nissan B-15, valued at $25,000, which was parked on the property, and drove away in the stolen vehicle.

After the attackers left, the victims managed to untie themselves and raise the alarm with nearby relatives, who immediately contacted local law enforcement. Police confirmed that response teams from the Penal Police Station, the Criminal Investigations Department, the South-Western Division Task Force, and the South-Western Division High Performance Patrol Unit arrived at the scene just after 1:20 a.m. on Tuesday to launch the investigation.

Officers located the stolen Nissan abandoned on Haggard Trace in Penal not long after the attack. The vehicle was towed to the Special Evidence Recovery Unit to undergo full forensic testing for DNA and fingerprint evidence. Investigations are currently ongoing led by Police Constable Ramdhanie, with no arrests reported as of the latest update.