Woolmer’s body was blocking hotel room door
Bob Woolmer’s body was blocking access to his hotel room when it was discovered on March 18, forcing the startled chambermaid assigned to the room to seek help from other housekeeping staff to push open the door, a source close to the investigation confirmed Monday.
“That is true, she (the housekeeper) could not open the door fully as the body was lying in the way, just by the door to the bathroom,” the source responded when the question was posed by the Observer. “She had to call some of her co-workers to help her push open the door in order to get in.”
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, agreed with the conclusion of local police, reported in last Saturday’s Observer, that the former Pakistan cricket coach was not murdered.
On Saturday, the Observer had reported that a senior Jamaican police officer told the newspaper that local detectives who had gone to Woolmer’s room on March 18 had, based on what they saw, concluded that the coach was not murdered. However, they were overruled.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Mark Shields, who is in charge of crime and who is the lead investigator in the Woolmer case, has maintained that the former coach’s death was being treated as murder, even though he has said that the police are “keeping an open mind and looking at all angles”.
Last Saturday, Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper reported that the Jamaican police were getting ready to announce that Woolmer’s death was no longer being treated as a homicide.
“Instead, officers believe he died of heart failure brought on by chronic ill-health and possibly diabetes,” the Daily Mail story said, describing the development as a “sensational twist” that followed “an extensive review of the evidence led by a senior Scotland Yard murder squad detective”.
The Daily Mail story also reported unnamed colleagues of Shields saying that the former Scotland Yard cop and government pathologist Dr Ere Seshaiah should share the blame for what the paper termed “the bungled inquiry”.
The paper also quoted one of Shields’ colleagues as saying that Shields “.should have ensured a second post-mortem was carried out. Instead of saying the death was suspicious, he rushed out a statement saying it was murder. He is going to be a laughing stock”.
