Nat’l Security Council Tracking murder motives 

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, June 18th, 2023 – Following a spate of killings in under a week the National Security Council has revealed they are now tracking the motive behind the violent killings; sorting them into murders connected to serious crimes and those appearing to be isolated incidents.

Based on that NSC data shared Tuesday June 13, the vast majority of killings this year can be traced back to criminal connections with five of the country’s seven murders thought to stem from serious illegal activity.  Of those seven murders three have occurred in rapid succession, all of them young men, all gunned down in Providenciales.

On June 7th, just after 12 pm, Magnetic Media began to receive reports of a brazen daylight murder where a young man was shot in the vicinity of a business with people passing by.  By 2pm police confirmed the news; Kyro Outten had been attacked in a public place, shot up and left slumped over in his car.

On June 11th, this time under the cover of darkness at nearly 12 am, criminals pumped bullets into another car.  Police confirmed the country’s second murder in just four days and sixth overall as Erod Chaute.  Like Kyro, he was left slumped in his car to bleed out.

On June 13th, only two days later a young man lay dead compounding the horror of residents.  He was shot just after 9 pm prompting calls to the police. When they arrived in Five Cays, it was to find his body still bleeding with no sign of life. This man has not yet been identified.

In the midst of the violence what the NSC and the police have not revealed is whether they think these are retaliatory killings aimed to hurt one criminal faction or the other.  The Turks and Caicos has in the past had a serious issue with retaliatory killings resulting in bloody exchanges between rival groups spanning months, sometimes catching innocents in the crossfire.

The back to back killings are an extremely worrisome trend prompting a press release from the Police to both reassure residents and plead for assistance in catching the murderers.

Police commissioner Trevor Botting said, “We keep the families of those who have been lost to violent crime on the TCI firmly in our mind; it’s the pursuit of justice for those lost which drives us to track down those responsible.  Policing will remain agile and responsive to the crime that is being committed. We are deploying every available tactic, some of it very overt on the streets and some of it covert, in the shadows, to identify those responsible for the crime.  Again, my plea is to you, our community, to assist us in the way you did during 2022 and tell us what you know.”