American Tourist Returns To Anguilla For Murder Trial

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
That's a great question! I'm not well versed on U.S.-U.K. realtions concerning criminals... but I doubt he'll go back on that court date... this is disconcerting..

How are they going to enforce the agreement of his return for the hearing?




I'm not sure who those two ladies are that were boarding the plane with him, but I think the wife was there... I'm not so sure this was a "vacation" trip....
It'll be interesting to see this story unravel, his lies get exposed and the real truth rear its ugly head....

The stories never mention the tourist's wife or of her being present on the trip. I'm not denying what you are saying. If she was on the trip, it is odd that there is no mention of her. Inferring that something seems to be amiss.
 

michelle81

Well-Known Member
From this article.
https://pagesix.com/2019/04/27/accused-ubs-banker-headed-to-four-seasons-after-alleged-killing/

Not surprised at all.


Mitchel’s father alleged in a radio interview with Hughes last week that, during the incident that led to his son’s death, “none of them tried to take this man off my son, not one, from what I understood.” He claimed that unspecified people instead feared they’d “lose their job for touching a tourist".

I'm sure "do not touch the tourists ever and under any circumstances" has been ingrained in them almost since birth due to the tourism dollars provided by those tourists.
 

HappilyLiberal

Well-Known Member
I think he will return for court or trial only because his job will probably force him to.
I don't see a conviction happening at all. Small island with most of it's money from tourism, they won't take the chance of hurting their dollars.

I don't think so. He will probably successfully argue that he's already been convicted in public and they will not force him to go back.
 

michelle81

Well-Known Member
I don't think so. He will probably successfully argue that he's already been convicted in public and they will not force him to go back.

I'm thinking that his job will make him because they don't want the negative backlash. Not sure if it's a publicly traded company or not, if so then the large shareholders aren't trying to have him mess with their money by not going back to face these charges. The company probably doesn't care about the worker being dead. They just don't want their money messed with because of this.

Now if he goes back, I'm sure there will be some back room deals possibly involving money being made. Him not going back would probably mean the end of his career.
 

HappilyLiberal

Well-Known Member
I'm thinking that his job will make him because they don't want the negative backlash. Not sure if it's a publicly traded company or not, if so then the large shareholders aren't trying to have him mess with their money by not going back to face these charges. The company probably doesn't care about the worker being dead. They just don't want their money messed with because of this.

Now if he goes back, I'm sure there will be some back room deals possibly involving money being made. Him not going back would probably mean the end of his career.

They're not going to get any negative backlash. That company has mostly white clients and this dude killed a black man and now has released pictures to show his injuries. Dude is just dead at this point!
 

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
Updates:

By ERROL BARNETT CBS NEWS August 22, 2019, 7:18 PM

American man charged with death of resort worker
returns to Anguilla


Anguilla — A Connecticut man accused of killing a hotel worker in Anguilla returned to the island for a court appearance Thursday. Scott Hapgood arrived at the preliminary hearing amidst unprecedented security and attention, eager for a trial where he says his innocence will be proven.

"Every court appearance means we're one step closer to putting this nightmare behind us," he said.

The 44-year-old financial advisor was on vacation with his family at a luxury resort last April when Kenny Mitchel, an employee, came to their room.

What happened next is unclear. But a violent struggle ended with Mitchel's death and Hapgood bloody and bruised. Hapgood was charged with manslaughter.


Scott Hapgood with his wife and children COURTESY HAPGOOD FAMILY

A toxicology report shows that Mitchel had a high level of alcohol and mix of drugs including cocaine in his system. The victim's family denies use of cocaine. CBS News spoke to his older brother, Marshall Mitchel.

"As long as he takes on jail, justice is served. Once he takes on jail. Because I mean you take a life. You take a life! You understand?" he said.

This case has truly captivated the British Caribbean territory. But before returning to the U.S., Hapgood left a message for the people of Anguilla.

"Someday I will be able to tell the real story in a legal setting. The sooner that day comes, the better," he said.

A lawyer for the Mitchel family would not speak with CBS News. The attorney general in Anguilla is encouraging people not to talk about the case. The next preliminary hearing is set for September 9th and expected to last five days.


© 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
CBS NEWS August 23, 2019, 7:10 AM
Witness challenges American man's account of killing Anguilla resort worker


For the first time, we're hearing from someone who said he witnessed part of the deadly confrontation between a Connecticut man and a worker at a Caribbean resort. Scott Hapgood faces manslaughter charges for the death of hotel worker Kenny Mitchel.

Geshaune Clarke, a bellman at Anguilla's Malliouhana Resort, said he was the first person to find Hapgood restraining Mitchel on the floor of his hotel bathroom on April 13. His version of events is at odds Hapgood's telling of the story, and it's raising new questions about what exactly happened in Hapgood's hotel room.

"I cannot say what happened initially. I only came there for the aftermath," Clarke told CBS News' Errol Barnett. "I saw Kenny on his back and Mr. Hapgood over Kenny."

Clarke said he saw Hapgood's forearm on Mitchel's neck and was told he came after Hapgood with a knife asking for money. Clarke said he told Hapgood to give Mitchel "proper breathing and space." At one point, according to Clarke, Mitchel tried responding.

"He said, 'Can I speak?' Then, in that same position, Mr. Hapgood came, looked down at him and say, 'You don't have a f****** thing to say,'" Clarke said.

Clarke said he and his security manager tried to intervene, but Hapgood refused for roughly 30 minutes.

"He stated that he would not move, he would not get up. He would not do anything until police is present," Clarke said.

Clarke also said Hapgood's wife came in the room after he did and recorded part of the encounter on her phone. Clarke said he knows Hapgood's wife was taking a video, not photos, because he saw her press the record button.

An autopsy report shows Mitchel died by "positional asphyxia." A toxicology report also shows he had drugs and alcohol in his system. Hapgood's family said Hapgood was bitten and stabbed, but Clarke said the knife Mitchel was allegedly carrying didn't have any blood on it.

Outside the Anguilla courthouse following Thursday's hearing, Mitchel's brother Marshal demanded justice, saying, "As long as he takes on jail, justice is served … You take a life! You understand?"

Hapgood – who was vacationing in Anguilla with his family in April – said he's eager for a trial where he said his innocence will be proven.

"Someday I will be able to tell the real story in a legal setting. The sooner that day comes, the better," Hapgood said.

A representative for the Hapgoods said they deny most of Clarke's account – except for the delay in releasing Mitchel. Hapgood said through his representatives he was afraid the hotel staff who offered to help were part of a plan to attack him and he didn't trust them.

The next hearing in this case begins September 9.


© 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 

RUBY

Well-Known Member
Was a toxicology study done on the murderer?

Did the police take pictures of the murderer before he posted bail?

Those children look way younger than the two women seen leaving with him.

I see now references to a wife taking pictures. Are we sure the woman was wifey?

I agree with your first question. At this point when it was agreed that white dude was the one choking and restraining the victim for a lengthy period of time we need to know what was in his system.
 

Chaosbutterfly

Transition Over
From that account, he didn't sound traumatized or like someone acting in fear.
It sounded like he purposefully held this man in a position where he couldn't breathe for an extended period of time, and was in full control of the situation.

I can believe that the worker was there with not great intentions. If he had all that stuff in his system, who knows. We also don't know the history between them, because the only other person who could say is dead and wasn't even given the courtesy of final words. Maybe they met earlier and had an altercation. Or they had some kind of deal and the man was there to collect what he was owed. Who knows. I feel like the wife must be involved, because what kind of woman sees her husband choking the life from another human and doesn't try to get him to like...stop?

But whatever caused the fight, the moment that victim was successfully subdued and help arrived, the so-called threat to his life was over. For him to keep holding him like that until he died was murder, point blank.

And yes, the other hotel workers ain't about nothing. Gonna stand there and let some white man choke out your friend and coworker, on your own soil. Today it is this man, but tomorrow, it could be any of them. The father and brother should get a large stick and beat each and every last one of them.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
The Caribbean Resort, the Investment Banker and the Dead Handyman
What happened in Room 49 on an April afternoon?

WEST END VILLAGE, Anguilla — Sunset is as much a part of the package at the Malliouhana resort hotel as the warm face towels at check-in and morning yoga on the beach. Guests gather at plush patio sofas, tented cabanas, poolside lounges, bar stools and day beds, signature Rum Punches in hand, to watch a daily natural occurrence as if it were a blockbuster show.

But a violent death at the resort has rattled its tranquil rhythms and brought unwanted scrutiny to the resort, specifically to the door marked 49 and the bathroom within.

What happened on April 13 has riled the small island’s population and has raised uncomfortable questions about class, privilege and the deference shown to tourists, who drive the local economy. At the same time, as the narrative of events unfolds, those very tourists are left reconsidering assumptions about personal safety once taken for granted in this idyllic setting.

‘He pulled a knife’
The fight began in the suite’s entryway, where the men crashed into a heavy table hard enough to dent a wall and spilled bright drops of blood on the tiled floor. It then moved to a large bathroom, where Mr. Hapgood, a former Dartmouth College football player, pinned the thinner Mr. Mitchel on the floor and planted a forearm to his neck.

Mr. Hapgood, who has retained a crisis-management firm to handle inquiries from reporters, declined to be interviewed, but offered his first account of the fight and its aftermath in emails to The New York Times.

Mr. Hapgood said he was relaxing in the suite, watching the Masters Tournament on television. His daughters, 13 and 11, returned from snorkeling in the ocean. His wife was returning the snorkeling equipment, and their son, 9, had gone to the lobby for a cookie. Mr. Mitchel knocked on the door, and Mr. Hapgood answered.

“I had not seen this man before,” Mr. Hapgood wrote. “He said he was there to fix a broken sink. I did not think a sink was broken and I had not called in any requests for maintenance. Nevertheless, as he was in uniform and being rational (after all this was an upscale hotel), I said he could come in and take a look and I let him in.”

Moments later, Mr. Hapgood wrote, Mr. Mitchel “pulled a knife on me, demanding my money and my wallet.” Though Mr. Hapgood declined to discuss the details of the fight, he said it was a “hard struggle” and he was stabbed and bitten several times.

“I feared for my life, as well as the lives of my daughters,” he wrote.

As the two men struggled, the girls ran to the front desk for help, and a bellman, Geshuane Clarke, 27, hurried to the room. He said in an interview that he saw drops of blood on the floor inside and, nearby, a partially opened Leatherman tool.

Then he heard loud thuds and found the two men on the floor in the bathroom. Mr. Mitchel, who was whippet-thin, was on his back, and the larger Mr. Hapgood was straddling his torso with his left arm leaning on Mr. Mitchel’s neck and face, Mr. Clarke said.

He said Mr. Mitchel appeared to be struggling for air. Mr. Clarke recalled Mr. Hapgood saying, “‘He came at me with a knife, threatening me, asking me for money and asking my daughters for money.’”

A “security guy” arrived and told Mr. Hapgood, “We’re here to help,” Mr. Clarke said.
Then Mr. Clarke, who also has a job as a dental assistant and who has had medical training, told Mr. Hapgood that Mr. Mitchel was having trouble breathing, but the American replied, “He’s O.K. He’s breathing. I can feel him breathing.”

Mr. Hapgood was adamant that he would not let Mr. Mitchel up until the police arrived or the hotel security guards put him in handcuffs, Mr. Clarke said. About a half-hour passed this way. To try to appease him, Mr. Clarke said he looked around in vain for duct tape to bind his friend.

More employees arrived at the room, including a supervisor. Mr. Hapgood said they were wearing hotel uniforms and addressed Mr. Mitchel by name. “I was afraid they were part of the plan to continue to attack me and frankly I did not trust them,” he wrote.

Mr. Mitchel was fading, Mr. Clarke recalled. “From the way he was breathing, you could hear there was fluid in his throat,” he said. Then, he added, Mr. Mitchel managed to whisper, “Can I speak?”

“Hapgood said, ‘You don’t have a thing to say,’” adding an expletive, Mr. Clarke recalled.

Mr. Hapgood’s wife arrived, and Mr. Clarke said he saw her filming the scene with her phone. The Hapgoods, however, said she did not film the incident.

The police and paramedics arrived and took Mr. Mitchel away on a gurney. Mr. Clarke accompanied them.

“He had a very weak pulse,” Mr. Clarke said.

In the ambulance, Mr. Clarke placed an oxygen mask over Mr. Mitchel’s face. “You know how when you breathe out, it fogs up?” he said. “Nothing happened.”

He spoke to his unconscious friend. “I told Kenny, ‘I’m waiting to hear your story, because something happened,’” he said.

After the suite was empty of employees and the police, Mr. Hapgood said he discovered $200 was missing from his money clip on a bedside table.

His lawyers said the police found more than $600 in various currencies on Mr. Mitchel, and it was unclear where the money came from. Mr. Mitchel’s father, Neville, however, told the police he had given it to his son the night before.

Days later, Mr. Mitchel’s cause of death was listed as “positional asphyxia,” or suffocation in a prone restraint.

‘This was strange and unusual’
Since Mr. Mitchel’s death, his friends and family have said Mr. Hapgood’s account seems implausible. Mr. Mitchel was a good-natured joker, they said, and, in the words of one friend, an “ambassador for Anguilla.”

He doted on his 2-year-old daughter, they said, and enjoyed his work at Malliouhana. It was a good job on an island where the per capita income is about $29,000 a year. The idea that he would try to rob a guest — while in uniform, during his shift — did not make sense, they argued.

“Once you’ve got a job, you’re going to keep that job,” Mr. Clarke said.

But revelations suggest that perhaps Mr. Mitchel was anticipating losing his job after an incident that complicates the sunny portrait.

On March 25, less than three weeks before the fight with Mr. Hapgood, Mr. Mitchel was arrested and, the next day, charged with rape, according to police correspondence obtained by The Times. He spent a night in jail before being released on bail, and the case was pending when he died, with a court hearing scheduled for July.

A criminal conviction would have surely cost him his position at the resort and would have likely caused him, a nonnative, to lose his permit to work in Anguilla. Without the permit, he would have been forced to leave the island, and his father and daughter.

The person who accused him of rape was his former live-in girlfriend, Emily Garlick, the mother of their daughter. They had separated and Ms. Garlick had moved out, but the two remained close, she said.

Ms. Garlick declined to discuss the rape allegation in recent interviews, writing it off as a nonevent.

“It wasn’t a rape,” Ms. Garlick said. “It was a misunderstanding. We had a spat. We had a disagreement. That was it.” She said Mr. Mitchel was not overly preoccupied by the arrest.


Mr. Clarke, the resort bellman, also said Mr. Mitchel did not seem anxious about his job. “He did not show any concern, any worry,” he said.

On a recent visit to Anguilla, an island of 15,000 people where a typical breaking news story might be about a farmer’s missing goats, the death of Mr. Mitchel was still front and center in conversations. His friends spoke of it in hushed tones within the halls of the Malliouhana and, miles away in The Valley, the island’s interior town where Mr. Mitchel lived.

“I’ve never seen Kenny angry,” said the owner of a nearby store, Neville Richardson, 63. “His friendliness is what attracts you to him.”

Mr. Hapgood, a coach for his daughter’s lacrosse team who last made news for winning a platform tennis tournament with his wife, has become a reviled household name in Anguilla, which is only 35 square miles.

What was supposed to be the Hapgood family’s first vacation abroad — “We just wanted to get some sun over Spring Break,” he wrote — has become a fight to stay out of prison on foreign soil. He was placed on leave from UBS pending the outcome of the case.

Many residents assume he will not return for this month’s court date — he has said he will — and deeply resent that he was allowed to leave in the first place.

“Anguillans caught with weed have much stiffer penalties,” Mr. Hughes, the former government official, said. “This was strange and unusual.”

In recent weeks, the police have issued an Osman warning to Mr. Hapgood, a formal notice that officers cannot guarantee his safety, said one of his lawyers, Tim Prudhoe. Mr. Hapgood’s lawyers are trying to allow him to attend the hearing remotely without returning to the island, Mr. Prudhoe said.

Some wonder whether the case will deter tourists from visiting — and whether, at least in the short term, that is an altogether bad thing.

“The tourists who querulously inquire about the ‘atmosphere on the island’ give me cause to shake my head,” Vanessa Croft Thompson, a 34-year-old teacher on the island, posted on her Facebook page. “We are suddenly scared, like a dog who was never hit before.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/nyregion/gavin-hapgood-kenny-mitchel-anguilla.html
 

Kanky

Well-Known Member
But whatever caused the fight, the moment that victim was successfully subdued and help arrived, the so-called threat to his life was over. For him to keep holding him like that until he died was murder, point blank.
.


Mr. Hapgood was adamant that he would not let Mr. Mitchel up until the police arrived or the hotel security guards put him in handcuffs, Mr. Clarke said.

More employees arrived at the room, including a supervisor. Mr. Hapgood said they were wearing hotel uniforms and addressed Mr. Mitchel by name. “I was afraid they were part of the plan to continue to attack me and frankly I did not trust them,” he wrote.
It doesn’t seem like he was trying to kill the man, and being suspicious of the hotel staff seems reasonable under the circumstances. The hotel worker showed up in uniform to rob him, and there have been a lot of stories lately about resort workers conspiring to harm guests.
 

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
Here's a pic of the woman he allegedly raped, with their child
What's troubling to me:
1) I find it odd, no one knows where the $600 in various currencies came from. If Hapgood had been robbed of $600, it would've been known all along
2) A so-called hardcore robber, asking for permission to speak...

upload_2019-8-25_19-22-46.png

The Caribbean Resort, the Investment Banker and the Dead Handyman
What happened in Room 49 on an April afternoon?

WEST END VILLAGE, Anguilla — Sunset is as much a part of the package at the Malliouhana resort hotel as the warm face towels at check-in and morning yoga on the beach. Guests gather at plush patio sofas, tented cabanas, poolside lounges, bar stools and day beds, signature Rum Punches in hand, to watch a daily natural occurrence as if it were a blockbuster show.

But a violent death at the resort has rattled its tranquil rhythms and brought unwanted scrutiny to the resort, specifically to the door marked 49 and the bathroom within.

What happened on April 13 has riled the small island’s population and has raised uncomfortable questions about class, privilege and the deference shown to tourists, who drive the local economy. At the same time, as the narrative of events unfolds, those very tourists are left reconsidering assumptions about personal safety once taken for granted in this idyllic setting.

‘He pulled a knife’
The fight began in the suite’s entryway, where the men crashed into a heavy table hard enough to dent a wall and spilled bright drops of blood on the tiled floor. It then moved to a large bathroom, where Mr. Hapgood, a former Dartmouth College football player, pinned the thinner Mr. Mitchel on the floor and planted a forearm to his neck.

Mr. Hapgood, who has retained a crisis-management firm to handle inquiries from reporters, declined to be interviewed, but offered his first account of the fight and its aftermath in emails to The New York Times.

Mr. Hapgood said he was relaxing in the suite, watching the Masters Tournament on television. His daughters, 13 and 11, returned from snorkeling in the ocean. His wife was returning the snorkeling equipment, and their son, 9, had gone to the lobby for a cookie. Mr. Mitchel knocked on the door, and Mr. Hapgood answered.

“I had not seen this man before,” Mr. Hapgood wrote. “He said he was there to fix a broken sink. I did not think a sink was broken and I had not called in any requests for maintenance. Nevertheless, as he was in uniform and being rational (after all this was an upscale hotel), I said he could come in and take a look and I let him in.”

Moments later, Mr. Hapgood wrote, Mr. Mitchel “pulled a knife on me, demanding my money and my wallet.” Though Mr. Hapgood declined to discuss the details of the fight, he said it was a “hard struggle” and he was stabbed and bitten several times.

“I feared for my life, as well as the lives of my daughters,” he wrote.

As the two men struggled, the girls ran to the front desk for help, and a bellman, Geshuane Clarke, 27, hurried to the room. He said in an interview that he saw drops of blood on the floor inside and, nearby, a partially opened Leatherman tool.

Then he heard loud thuds and found the two men on the floor in the bathroom. Mr. Mitchel, who was whippet-thin, was on his back, and the larger Mr. Hapgood was straddling his torso with his left arm leaning on Mr. Mitchel’s neck and face, Mr. Clarke said.

He said Mr. Mitchel appeared to be struggling for air. Mr. Clarke recalled Mr. Hapgood saying, “‘He came at me with a knife, threatening me, asking me for money and asking my daughters for money.’”

A “security guy” arrived and told Mr. Hapgood, “We’re here to help,” Mr. Clarke said.
Then Mr. Clarke, who also has a job as a dental assistant and who has had medical training, told Mr. Hapgood that Mr. Mitchel was having trouble breathing, but the American replied, “He’s O.K. He’s breathing. I can feel him breathing.”

Mr. Hapgood was adamant that he would not let Mr. Mitchel up until the police arrived or the hotel security guards put him in handcuffs, Mr. Clarke said. About a half-hour passed this way. To try to appease him, Mr. Clarke said he looked around in vain for duct tape to bind his friend.

More employees arrived at the room, including a supervisor. Mr. Hapgood said they were wearing hotel uniforms and addressed Mr. Mitchel by name. “I was afraid they were part of the plan to continue to attack me and frankly I did not trust them,” he wrote.

Mr. Mitchel was fading, Mr. Clarke recalled. “From the way he was breathing, you could hear there was fluid in his throat,” he said. Then, he added, Mr. Mitchel managed to whisper, “Can I speak?”

“Hapgood said, ‘You don’t have a thing to say,’” adding an expletive, Mr. Clarke recalled.

Mr. Hapgood’s wife arrived, and Mr. Clarke said he saw her filming the scene with her phone. The Hapgoods, however, said she did not film the incident.

The police and paramedics arrived and took Mr. Mitchel away on a gurney. Mr. Clarke accompanied them.

“He had a very weak pulse,” Mr. Clarke said.

In the ambulance, Mr. Clarke placed an oxygen mask over Mr. Mitchel’s face. “You know how when you breathe out, it fogs up?” he said. “Nothing happened.”

He spoke to his unconscious friend. “I told Kenny, ‘I’m waiting to hear your story, because something happened,’” he said.

After the suite was empty of employees and the police, Mr. Hapgood said he discovered $200 was missing from his money clip on a bedside table.

His lawyers said the police found more than $600 in various currencies on Mr. Mitchel, and it was unclear where the money came from. Mr. Mitchel’s father, Neville, however, told the police he had given it to his son the night before.

Days later, Mr. Mitchel’s cause of death was listed as “positional asphyxia,” or suffocation in a prone restraint.

‘This was strange and unusual’
Since Mr. Mitchel’s death, his friends and family have said Mr. Hapgood’s account seems implausible. Mr. Mitchel was a good-natured joker, they said, and, in the words of one friend, an “ambassador for Anguilla.”

He doted on his 2-year-old daughter, they said, and enjoyed his work at Malliouhana. It was a good job on an island where the per capita income is about $29,000 a year. The idea that he would try to rob a guest — while in uniform, during his shift — did not make sense, they argued.

“Once you’ve got a job, you’re going to keep that job,” Mr. Clarke said.

But revelations suggest that perhaps Mr. Mitchel was anticipating losing his job after an incident that complicates the sunny portrait.

On March 25, less than three weeks before the fight with Mr. Hapgood, Mr. Mitchel was arrested and, the next day, charged with rape, according to police correspondence obtained by The Times. He spent a night in jail before being released on bail, and the case was pending when he died, with a court hearing scheduled for July.

A criminal conviction would have surely cost him his position at the resort and would have likely caused him, a nonnative, to lose his permit to work in Anguilla. Without the permit, he would have been forced to leave the island, and his father and daughter.

The person who accused him of rape was his former live-in girlfriend, Emily Garlick, the mother of their daughter. They had separated and Ms. Garlick had moved out, but the two remained close, she said.

Ms. Garlick declined to discuss the rape allegation in recent interviews, writing it off as a nonevent.

“It wasn’t a rape,” Ms. Garlick said. “It was a misunderstanding. We had a spat. We had a disagreement. That was it.” She said Mr. Mitchel was not overly preoccupied by the arrest.


Mr. Clarke, the resort bellman, also said Mr. Mitchel did not seem anxious about his job. “He did not show any concern, any worry,” he said.

On a recent visit to Anguilla, an island of 15,000 people where a typical breaking news story might be about a farmer’s missing goats, the death of Mr. Mitchel was still front and center in conversations. His friends spoke of it in hushed tones within the halls of the Malliouhana and, miles away in The Valley, the island’s interior town where Mr. Mitchel lived.

“I’ve never seen Kenny angry,” said the owner of a nearby store, Neville Richardson, 63. “His friendliness is what attracts you to him.”

Mr. Hapgood, a coach for his daughter’s lacrosse team who last made news for winning a platform tennis tournament with his wife, has become a reviled household name in Anguilla, which is only 35 square miles.

What was supposed to be the Hapgood family’s first vacation abroad — “We just wanted to get some sun over Spring Break,” he wrote — has become a fight to stay out of prison on foreign soil. He was placed on leave from UBS pending the outcome of the case.

Many residents assume he will not return for this month’s court date — he has said he will — and deeply resent that he was allowed to leave in the first place.

“Anguillans caught with weed have much stiffer penalties,” Mr. Hughes, the former government official, said. “This was strange and unusual.”

In recent weeks, the police have issued an Osman warning to Mr. Hapgood, a formal notice that officers cannot guarantee his safety, said one of his lawyers, Tim Prudhoe. Mr. Hapgood’s lawyers are trying to allow him to attend the hearing remotely without returning to the island, Mr. Prudhoe said.

Some wonder whether the case will deter tourists from visiting — and whether, at least in the short term, that is an altogether bad thing.

“The tourists who querulously inquire about the ‘atmosphere on the island’ give me cause to shake my head,” Vanessa Croft Thompson, a 34-year-old teacher on the island, posted on her Facebook page. “We are suddenly scared, like a dog who was never hit before.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/nyregion/gavin-hapgood-kenny-mitchel-anguilla.html




That account is the defendant's account.... So, basically you believe his story..

It doesn’t seem like he was trying to kill the man, and being suspicious of the hotel staff seems reasonable under the circumstances. The hotel worker showed up in uniform to rob him, and there have been a lot of stories lately about resort workers conspiring to harm guests.
 

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
ETA: I hope so, on the toxicology report... I misread your post. Yes, that wife is suspect to me as well...


Was a toxicology study done on the murderer?

Did the police take pictures of the murderer before he posted bail?

Those children look way younger than the two women seen leaving with him.

I see now references to a wife taking pictures. Are we sure the woman was wifey?
 

Kanky

Well-Known Member
Here's a pic of the woman he allegedly raped, with their child
What's troubling to me:
1) I find it odd, no one knows where the $600 in various currencies came from. If Hapgood had been robbed of $600, it would've been known all along
2) A so-called hardcore robber, asking for permission to speak...

View attachment 450741






That account is the defendant's account.... So, basically you believe his story..
The defendant’s story makes more sense than anything else I’ve read. And the $600 in various currencies probably came from robbing other tourists.
 

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
Oh, OK .. his version makes no sense to me, so I don't believe his story. I hope the trial happens..

The defendant’s story makes more sense than anything else I’ve read. And the $600 in various currencies probably came from robbing other tourists.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
That account is the defendant's account.... So, basically you believe his story..

It's not the defendant's account.

The New York Times found out the victim was charged with rape and spent the night in jail. He had a rape case pending. His girlfriend corroborated that he was arrested for rape and said that it was a misunderstanding. That's why I highlighted her direct quote.

You posted her picture like it's unheard of for white women to holler rape against black men they are in relationships with.

Also, the NYT pointed out that the daughters ran to the front desk to get help and it was because of them that the bellhop Geshuane Clarke went to the room.


Here's a pic of the woman he allegedly raped, with their child
What's troubling to me:
1) I find it odd, no one knows where the $600 in various currencies came from. If Hapgood had been robbed of $600, it would've been known all along
2) A so-called hardcore robber, asking for permission to speak...
1. They are saying the victim had $600 in various currencies implying that he robbed multiple other tourists from different countries before he got to Hapgood's room.

2. A "hardcore robber" with his wind getting cut off may figure that's not the time to get buck.
 

HappilyLiberal

Well-Known Member
After the suite was empty of employees and the police, Mr. Hapgood said he discovered $200 was missing from his money clip on a bedside table.

His lawyers said the police found more than $600 in various currencies on Mr. Mitchel, and it was unclear where the money came from. Mr. Mitchel’s father, Neville, however, told the police he had given it to his son the night before.


Here's what I don't understand... where did the dad get $600 in various currencies from? He's claiming he gave that money to his son. Does he work at the resort too? It sounds to me like the dad is trying to cover-up for his thieving son. If I was that dude, I would not have gone back!
 

Theresamonet

Well-Known Member
At this point I pretty much believe that the resort worker tried to rob him. I don’t know the laws in Anguilla, but it still sounds like a charge of manslaughter was appropriate, based on the accounts of both the defendant and the witness. He did not have to make a citizen’s arrest and squeeze the life out of the man for over 30 minutes, with people pleading for him to let go. He did too much.
 

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
@Bolded, the defendant's account I'm referring to is Hapgood's initial take of what actually happened in the hotel room... apparently @Kanky pulled in the rape allegation into her response about Hapgood..
The daughters ran to get help because..??? they were being robbed or the dad was choking the life out of someone and they were scared?


I'd posted the pic, because you'd highlighted the text in blue of the rape allegation, as if Black men have never been falsely accused of rape by YT women... it either was a rape or a misunderstanding.






It's not the defendant's account.

The New York Times found out the victim was charged with rape and spent the night in jail. He had a rape case pending. His girlfriend corroborated that he was arrested for rape and said that it was a misunderstanding. That's why I highlighted her direct quote.

You posted her picture like it's unheard of for white women to holler rape against black men they are in relationships with.

Also, the NYT pointed out that the daughters ran to the front desk to get help and it was because of them that the bellhop Geshuane Clarke went to the room.



1. They are saying the victim had $600 in various currencies implying that he robbed multiple other tourists from different countries before he got to Hapgood's room.

2. A "hardcore robber" with his wind getting cut off may figure that's not the time to get buck.
 
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Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
The witness, Mr Clarke, says he saw the wife filming the incident on her cell..yet the Hapgoods insist they didn't record the incident. Why would they not want to provide proof of the incident? I doubt the police was able to get hold of this evidence.. smh
 
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