Marco Archer, the eleven-year-old boy who went missing last week Friday, was found dead in bushes behind a Cable Beach apartment complex yesterday around 10am. The boy had been sexually attacked and brutally murdered.
The child’s body was found badly decomposed behind an apartment complex on Yorkshire Drive, where the primary suspect in the case lives. The 33-year-old suspect was recently released from prison, having been convicted and jailed for the 2003 murder of a young boy whose body was discovered in a dumpster on Claridge Road. A crime for which he served only seven years before being paroled.
This suspect is the brother of a senior ranking police officer currently serving as an inspector on the police force and who formerly served as an official bodyguard to a senior cabinet minister. The apartment complex is reportedly owned by the inspector. Police are questioning two others in the case as well.
The distraught family is outraged that the police did not respond quicker when they reported the boy missing. They were told there is wait time. The family believes that the police force did not take their case seriously and it was not made a priority because they have no connections or prominence.
The crime has raised public outcry for a registered sex offenders list. People have hit out at the secrecy which surrounds child abuse cases.
A local blog reports that a few weeks ago the suspect abducted another young boy in the Chippingham area. The child was able to escape and the matter was reported to police but never made it into the media.
Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade came to the murder scene himself and it is suggested that he took charge of the case because of the high likelihood that evidence could go missing.
This horrific incident brings the nation’s murder count to 104. The Bahamas Christian Council has declared a national crisis and is calling for tougher legislation. Of concern is that women and children are increasingly becoming targets, and the offenders are often criminals who are known to the police and have been through the judicial system.
