Rio fugitive surrenders

(Trinidad Express) – Rio Claro‘s most wanted, Peter Garcia, the man police have blamed for single-handedly having Agostini Village under siege, surrendered to homicide detectives on Tuesday.

But not before Garcia, a suspect in at least four murders in the area, gave his version of the month-long standoff with police, to the Express and a television crew in an interview at an undisclosed location.

It was the same hillside hideout at which Garcia’s 64-year-old mother, Elaine, gave the Express an exclusive interview on April 21.

According to officers of the Rio Claro Police Station, Garcia is allegedly a fugitive who has been hiding in the vast forest in southeast Trinidad.

He is also allegedly responsible for killing two of his older brothers–Jason, 37, and Gerard, 41–in addition to Curtis Roy, 37, and 45-year-old Wayne Patrick Gonzales.

Garcia is also a suspect in the arson attack on his mother Elaine’s home on April 20. But during the April 21 interview Elaine strongly denied police claims that her 30-year-old son was responsible for the fiery attack on her home or the fatal shooting of his brothers.

Now this is the “real story” according to Garcia, the forest fugitive. He told his story yesterday around 9.50 am surrounded by loved ones, including his mother Elaine.

“I never kill nobody in my entire life, never. Right now I running for meh life, if I didn’t run for my life, I would have been a dead man all now,” Garcia said.

“They say I burn down my mother house. How I could burn down my mother house and my sons were living there too? They say I kill my two brothers. Why I could do that, that is my brothers? Why I will kill my own brothers? Think about it, no sense making in this. I just want to prove my innocence and start my life all over again,” he said.

“I is the scapegoat right now,” Garcia said. “I had Rio Claro under siege? I running for my life, I don’t know what going on. Everything happen they calling my name, that is how they plan it, so (person named) could kill out everybody and kill out everything and how I running, everything coming down on me right now, so that is why I realise I have to come in to prove my innocence and get out of this problem,” he said.

But even in the midst of these allegations by police and the alleged plot to kill him, Garcia’s main focus remained his family.

“I need protection for my family. Most important. I ain’t getting that from the police at all because my family dying and the police dealing with the people, the same men who killing out my family, and my family have no protection no how,” Garcia said.

Asked about his ability to stay hidden in the forest for such a long time, Garcia said:

“With the help of God, I had to hunt, catch fish all kind of thing to eat. It was survival of the fittest but it was hard. It still hard on my end ‘cause I looking like the wrong one, I looking like the guilty one all the way. How one man could do all this? What about the rest of people, is only I alone,” Garcia said.

After the ten-minute interview, Garcia was rushed to the Homicide headquarters at St Vincent Street, Port of Spain, by concerned relatives, where he met with his attorney, Wayne Sturge.