In February of 2009, police charged George Street dons Shelton “Pinky” Tillett and Micah Thompson along with Charles Woodeye, Eric Swan, and Carl Patnett for the murder of John Paul Saldivar in San Pedro. Today – almost one year later – the murder charge against all 5 was withdrawn.
This morning in the San Pedro Magistrate’s Court, the preliminary inquiry was scheduled to begin but instead Crown Counsel John Sanchez told Magistrate Emmerson Banner that he had been instructed by the Director of Public Prosecutions to withdraw the charges because of a lack of evidence. With that – the men who’ve spent the last 12 months on remand – with the exception of Carl Patnett – who has another case pending – were released.
Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl-Lyn Vidal told us that, “from the outset there was no evidence against certain of the persons. The evidence the police used was desperately unreliable.” She explained that one of the statements from one of the witness suggested an account of the
killing which was completely different from what the post mortem concluded. Our sources tell us that the witness said that Saldivar was shot in the head; but the post mortem showed that he was shot in the side. Investigators reportedly asked him to give a different statement but when he did he confessed to not really seeing when Saldivar was killed. The DPP told us that her office is “bound to carry reliable and credible evidence and in this case we would not have been able to do so.” So then it was just a statistical arrest? If police had no real evidence, it certainly looks so. But police were pushing hard for an arrest because it was a major crime.
John Paul Saldivar was found murdered in an area 14 miles north of San Pedro on January 31st. He was partially nude and had a gunshot wound to his side. There was also evidence that Saldivar, a fisherman from the area, had been tortured. On February third - the bodies of two other male persons - James Swan and Edward Gutierrez were found in a shallow grave 19 miles north of San Pedro. But police believe the murders were connected and were related to a drug drop that fell into the wrong hands. Shelton Pinky Tillet and Micah Thompson were busted on San Pedro the day before Saldivar’s body was discovered with 33 thousand U.S. dollars in cash which they told police was going to be used to purchase a Polaris ATV.
Pinky Tillet, Micah Thompson, and Charles Woodeye, and Eric Swan were represented by Kareem Musa while Michael Peyrefitte appeared for Patnett.
