According to a police report, officers at the Eight Mile Rock Police Station were stunned yesterday when the 15-year-old Haitian national told them that morning that he had killed a man on Lovers Beach on Saturday morning and buried him there.
The youth reportedly made the startling confession around 10:50 a.m. and pointed out a shallow grave to the officers who took him on the beach in Hepburn Town.
Police say the spot where the victim was burried was some 200 feet from the waterline behind a quarry dune.
When officers from the Central Detective Unit arrived on the scene, they unearthed the body of a black male, clad only in a pair of short white pants, lying face up.
The elderly man had sustained severe trauma to the head.
The body was later identified as that of 61-year-old Manes Saint-Ilien, a resident of Hepburn Town, Eight Mile Rock, who police say originally came from Port-de-Paix, Haiti.
Mr. Saint-Ilien was well known to the residents in the area which he frequented and was known to fish alone.
Police determined so far that the victim was fishing on the rocks at the eastern end of the beach when he was approached by the suspect who asked him for some of the fish he had caught and money, Police Press Liaison Chief Superintendent Basil Rahming said.
The victim reportedly refused the request and was subsequently attacked and beaten to death with a stone.
“The police investigation is now in full gear,” Police Press Liaison Chief Superintendent Basil Rahming told The Freeport News on the scene yesterday.
“The young man is cooperating with the detectives who are investigating this matter.”
Scores of Hepburn Town residents, familiar with Mr. Saint-Ilien, gathered at the crime scene and expressed shock and horror at what had transpired in their tranquil community.
The young suspect is also a resident of the Eight Mile Rock community of Butler’s Corner.
Mr. Saint-Ilien’s death is classified as the fourth homicide for Grand Bahama this year, the investigation continues.
By LEDEDRA MARCHE, Senior Freeport News Reporter
