Police make breakthrough in Barbados double murder

(Barbados Nation) Police have made a breakthrough in the August 2 double murder at Salters in St George.

Lawmen confirmed yesterday they were questioning two suspects after several weeks of investigation into the slayings at the home of 79-year-old victim Arthur Frederick Chaderton last month.

In an attack that stunned the country, Chaderton and his son-in-law Gerhart Stock, an Austrian, were gunned down on the night of August 2.

“We have made significant progress in the double murder at Salters in St George,” crime chief Assistant Commissioner of Police Seymour Cumberbatch told the DAILY NATION last night. “We have two men in connection with the incident.”

Detectives had been working round the clock hunting those responsible for the murders, a source revealed yesterday. One of the suspects in police custody is reported to be a United States deportee, who had run-ins with the law since his return to the island.

The source said the suspect was nabbed early Monday morning during a sting operation in a Christ Church district. The slippery man had previously eluded two other dragnets, one 24 hours earlier in Brittons Hill, St Michael.

The second suspect was held yesterday after a series of “intense operations”.

Investigators also believe the two might be responsible for a series of other violent armed robberies across the island.

The shootings of Chaderton and Stock had followed a Kadooment weekend of violence in which at least three people were shot and one stabbed.

The Chaderton and Stock deaths prompted an appeal from authorities for the help of the public in finding the killers.

The deaths also led to a family-organized march against crime.