Man beheaded in Five Cays; Murder No.8

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer 

#TurksandCaicos, July 7, 2023 – Violent killings continue to rock the Turks and Caicos Islands as criminals butcher the county’s young men with extreme brutality.  The latest report is of a man beheaded, with his body dropped in one location and head in another, marking the country’s eighth murder.  

Around 2 a.m. Wednesday July 5th, the Magnetic Media news team began receiving word that another death had been recorded.

Police confirmed the account around 11 am; their report revealed that investigators found the decapitated body in Five Cays after calls were placed to them around 1:30 a.m.  As for the man’s head, it took more hours searching and the head of the man was located around 7:30 am in an area known as Club Med; a former staff quarters for the hotel.

Magnetic Media can confirm, based on police reports, that the victim is 48-year-old, Desmond Arthur also known as ‘Pie’.  He had been listed as wanted by the Safeguarding and Public Protection Unit of the Royal TCI Police in November 2021 for an unspecified offense.

The National Library of Medicine says the force needed for the complete decapitation ranges up to 7846 Newtons (N).  For context, punching force in amateur boxing is about 2500 N; to break a femur, one of the toughest bones in the body, you would need up to 4000 N.  To successfully behead another human being would take absolute brute force and as the police reveal with their classification of the killing as a murder, deadly intent.

Now concerns are mounting about the rapid fire series of killings in the country.

Over the past six months, there have been seven confirmed murders and one suspicious death.  The bulk of those cases (5) have been concentrated in a short period of time (28 days), in Providenciales.

For many residents, it is a reminder of the 2022 massacres, where dozens of young men were cut down back to back.

Even with international assistance and detectives combing through evidence, police have not yet been able to match many of the cases to the killers.

An air of fear has begun to creep into the local community once more, with residents – via social media – expressing worry about the brutal, often brazen murders.

Of the seven homicides and one suspicious death, only one individual has been charged with murder.  The rest, the vast majority of which Police say are connected to serious crime,  remain unsolved.