“I have said this before, but I never miss the opportunity of mentioning this, because it is one moment in my policing career here in the BVI that is still sitting with me like it was yesterday. I just want to take listeners to the 22nd of November 2017, and that was when we had a double homicide in the West End of Tortola, and one of the victims of the homicide was an 11-year-old schoolgirl, Trinity Moses,” he remarked during an interview on My BVI Radio Show on Tuesday February 16, 2021.

“I never forget that we haven’t captured that killer and whilst we captured many other people since and charged them with the most serious of offences and got them locked up awaiting trials and so forth and even in the most recent cases, we are very confident that we will end up arresting and charging people; every now and again there is a shocking moment in history. And when I look at that moment back in time in 2017, and that little girl was lying asleep in the back of the car when an automatic weapon was fired into that vehicle by somebody on a scooter, and I don’t understand how our community has stayed so quiet about that.”

A reward of $100,000 was offered in 2018 and is still available for information leading to the identification and charge of those responsible for the murders of Penn and Moses.

Police can’t do it alone

The Commissioner of Police then expressed that the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force is unable to solve crimes on their own.

“If you are really being truthful to yourselves we gotta do it together. We can’t continue on this road of people saying I am not prepared to come forward; I am not prepared to say anything because there are ways that information can be given to the force without identifying who’s giving it to them and not every officer in the force is corrupt despite what the media will make of recent events here. So my message will remain very, very clear, we cannot do it alone, this has to be in partnership with the community. It is time for the community to stand up and say this is not good enough. It is time for the community to say we don’t want guns on the streets, we don’t want guns in the homes, and it is time for the community to declare outrage.”

He said the understandable ‘fear’ of speaking out should also be another reason to be angry as a community.

He added: “When I think back to that night when that little girl died I didn’t see large groups of the community protesting at the Road Town Police Station about the death of an 11-year-old schoolgirl here. Nothing happened.”

On that night, Trinity Moses was in the car along with her mother Ramona Moses, who was the sole survivor of the brutal attack.

Police had reported that the vehicle the victims were in was on the West End public road in the area of the graveyard around 9:30 PM when at least two scooter riders rode up to it and fired indiscriminately.

Meanwhile, anyone with information relating to these crimes are urged to contact Detective Inspector Vernon Larocque; directly on 368-9809 or via the Major Crime Investigation Team on 368-5682. Police said all information would be treated with the strictest confidence.

Three years plus since 11-year-old Trinity A. Moses met her death, along with Franklyn E. Penn at West End road, outgoing Commissioner of Police Mr Michael B. Matthews has expressed his disbelief with the silence of the community over the crime.

Franklin E. Penn Jr (left) and Trinity A. Thomas (right) were killed when gunmen opened fire on a vehicle at West End, Tortola on November 22, 2017. Police suspect the killings were a case of mistaken identity.

The vehicle in which three persons were in when they came under heavy gunfire while on the western end of Tortola on November 22, 2017.