Bonus: The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop

[0] In October of 1983, Grenada's prime minister, Maurice Bishop, was assassinated in a coup, along with seven of his cabinet members and supporters.

[1] They were all executed by a military firing squad.

[2] Six days later, the United States invaded this Caribbean island and took control of the country.

[3] And it was during this, the bodies of those eight people went missing, including the body of the Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop.

[4] That mystery of the missing remains continues until this day.

[5] That's where our friend Martine Powers comes in.

[6] Martine hosts a daily news show called Post Reports for the Washington Post, her parents live in Grenada, and a few years back she worked with us at Thuline to make an episode called Nobody's Backyard, all about the U .S. invasion and its aftermath.

[7] working with us on that episode got her curious and she started doing some more digging and ended up finding Annie Bain Annie's husband had been Grenada's minister of housing and he was one of those people executed alongside the prime minister for 40 years she has begged for answers about what happened when the Washington Post reporting team visited her house back in 2022 she told them about a memory that's had her convinced that someone knows what happened to her husband's body.

[8] I'm Ramtin Adablui, and today we're sharing an episode from the fantastic Washington Post podcast called The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop.

[9] Here it goes.

[10] Annie Bain never saw her husband's body after he was killed.

[11] But she did, for a brief moment, see something that he had been wearing when it happened.

[12] They promised to bring me back.

[13] They promised that they couldn't leave it with me. I told them to give me. But they said, no, they will get back to me with it.

[14] This came up during our interview with Annie last year.

[15] We had been talking with her at her home for about an hour when she told us the story about something that happened to her in the weeks after the executions in the U .S. invasion.

[16] One day, she couldn't remember the exact date, a group of officers had shown up at her door.

[17] They were investigating the murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, her husband, Nora Spain, and the others executed with them.

[18] These officers were not Canadian.

[19] They were part of a group of Caribbean peacekeeping forces.

[20] There's a few of them because it was in the veranda they're talking to them.

[21] Right here?

[22] Yeah, right here.

[23] In the same house, maybe about four or five of them, a few of them came.

[24] In Annie's recollection, the officers had shown up to ask for her help, to have her identify a piece of evidence.

[25] They had the got Norris being a ring.

[26] I saw the ring.

[27] She knew the ring.

[28] It was distinctive.

[29] She said her husband was part of a mechanics lodge and that the ring had the lodge's symbols on it, an alpha and an omega.

[30] So I saw that.

[31] I saw the ring and I asked them and say where they got the ring.

[32] So they brought jewelry with them to show you.

[33] to show me and to know if I recognized any of it.

[34] And I recognized Norris' ring.

[35] Yes, and I told them, I say, you must have gotten the ring on a finger.

[36] Annie was certain that her husband had been wearing this ring when he was killed.

[37] So to her, this all was read as a clue.

[38] She believed that the men showing her this ring must have recovered it from her husband's body.

[39] And she saw something else that she recognized, something that belonged to Mory's bishop.

[40] I even see Morris bracelet.

[41] They had quite a few exhibits.

[42] Why did they say they couldn't give it to you right then?

[43] Why did they need to hold on to it?

[44] Well, they didn't explain, but I mean, to my knowledge, I realized that they couldn't give it to me just like that.

[45] I figured that, well, whatever job they was doing, they're responsible.

[46] So you can go back and tell whoever you, that you give me to be in the ring.

[47] you know, couldn't do that because they had to keep these things for their investigation and things like that.

[48] Did they tell you that or that's just your understanding now?

[49] No, they didn't tell me, but they said that they would get back to me with their thing.

[50] And then you never got that jewelry back either.

[51] No. Never.

[52] From the Washington Post, I'm Martin Powers.

[53] And this is The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop, Episode 3.

[54] He has been turning over this moment in her life again and again for 40 years.

[55] And my impression of the way that she told us about this memory was that she thinks that there's nothing else to pull out here.

[56] But there are details in her memories that led us somewhere new.

[57] In addition to this story about the jewelry, she told me that she'd heard about something that happened the night of October 19th, just after the Grenadian Army had killed Norris Bain, Moraesbishop, and the rest of the group.

[58] Annie said that she'd heard that the bodies were first taken to an army camp at Calivini.

[59] Calivini is a peninsula on the southern coast of the island, just a few miles from the capital.

[60] There is people that were in Calvini that know what went on.

[61] Whoever was responsible for digging the trench to put them, whoever was responsible for bringing tires or whatever they put them, to burn them, they knows.

[62] We wanted to understand better what happened between the hours right after the killings and that moment when Annie was faced with the ring.

[63] To do that, we had to hear from people who were there.

[64] A lot of the witnesses to these moments are no longer alive, but a few of them are.

[65] We tracked down two people who could speak to the hours after the execution.

[66] They helped dispose of the bodies.

[67] One was Callistus Bernard.

[68] He was the officer who ordered the soldiers to fire on Bishop.

[69] As a reminder, he served time in prison for the murders, and he wouldn't speak with us.

[70] The other person was not part of the group of 17 convicted in connection to the murders.

[71] We heard that he had a business on the island, right in the middle of Grenada's capital, St. George's.

[72] On a skinny little side street in the downtown area, there is a faded sign for a repair shop.

[73] It's called MP's Electrical Services, where, quote, only the best is good enough.

[74] Hello.

[75] Hi.

[76] I'm looking for, hi.

[77] I'm looking for Manly Philip.

[78] Is it you?

[79] Manly Philip is the owner of this shop.

[80] We came from Washington, D .C., and we are interviewing people, because we're working on a documentary about 1983.

[81] Manly is in his late 60s.

[82] He seemed surprised to get this ask, but he agreed to talk with us if we could come back in a few days.

[83] When we did come back, he showed us into his small office.

[84] Just tell him, take up that music for me, please.

[85] The music, just tell me in Ludo.

[86] Where we immediately noticed what was hanging on his walls.

[87] Can you describe what that is?

[88] This one, yeah?

[89] The flag there and then the...

[90] Okay, that's the flag of the revolution.

[91] After the revolution was realized, this is the flag that was established.

[92] the United Revolution.

[93] This one was the party, the New Jersey movement.

[94] Yeah.

[95] And you still have it up?

[96] I still have it up.

[97] 40 years later.

[98] Wow.

[99] Yep.

[100] And behind you, if you just pull the blind a little, then you will see Maurice Bishop International Airport.

[101] Oh, wow.

[102] Here he's pointing to a bumper sticker with a photo of Maurice Bishop.

[103] So that was when they named it after him.

[104] Yeah, uh -huh.

[105] Wow.

[106] Oh, my gosh.

[107] So you really like to represent that history here.

[108] Well, that is part of our history.

[109] Yeah, yeah.

[110] You know?

[111] Yeah.

[112] And I uphold it.

[113] Before he ran this repair shop, mainly Philip served in the Grenadian Army, or the People's Revolutionary Army.

[114] That's what he was doing in 1983.

[115] He was an officer then, and one of his jobs was to train soldiers.

[116] I was very active in the Revolution in the training school.

[117] Manley said he didn't witness the executions of Maurice Bishop and the others.

[118] But he was at Fort Rupert that afternoon, after the crowds of protesters had been shot at and had fled for safety.

[119] He was inside what had been the communications room of the fort.

[120] So he remembers hearing the sound of automatic gunfire.

[121] I hold this automatic fire.

[122] So evidently, I get panic, so I run out.

[123] And I looked up in the direction what if I came from.

[124] A superior officer was walking toward him, coming down from the upper level of the fort where the sound of the shots had come from.

[125] Manley confronted him.

[126] That is the first time I ever attempted to, well, disrespect a superior officer.

[127] So I said, what if, what happened up there?

[128] All he did?

[129] As Manley made that sound, he drew his fingers across his throat.

[130] He would have seen when them guys were lined up.

[131] I talked about when I said, Then Manley took no heart, Maurice, his cabinet colleagues, and things that was lined up.

[132] Then Manley went up to the top of the fort, to the outdoor square where the bodies were on the ground.

[133] The word he used to describe the scene was horrific.

[134] He said the bodies of his former comrades were mutilated, torn apart by bullets.

[135] Can I ask, when you, did you recall how many bodies you saw when you looked?

[136] At the time I did not check At the time I did not check But I have been able to identify a few of the guys Well as for Morris You know the way If you need a second too When I saw what was done to on Morris It was heartbroken And the other comrades like Now he's been Jacqueline Craff You know, that word It was something else Manley didn't know what to do after that He just remembers being in a daze.

[137] He went to his barracks, lay down on his bed without taking off his boots, and put a pillow over his face.

[138] I don't know what time I fell asleep, but what I can see is that sometimes during the night, I have no knowledge about the time.

[139] My door was knocked.

[140] When he opened the door, he saw a soldier standing in the darkness, a guy named Fabian Gabriel, who died a number of years ago.

[141] First thing, the question he asked me, say, what happened, you know, to burn a body?

[142] Do you know how to burn a body?

[143] Well, I reacted in a...

[144] I said, what kind of question asking me?

[145] Where did it come from?

[146] And then he laughed.

[147] And then he said, the chief asked me to accompany them to go down and get rid of the bodies.

[148] Manley learned then that he and Fabian had orders.

[149] They were supposed to oversee a group of soldiers who were going to drive the bodies out to the army camp at Calavit.

[150] and then burn them.

[151] I asked him, why?

[152] Why not just return the bodies to their families?

[153] Mainly didn't know, but he thought it might be because it would have been too awful for the families to see.

[154] That is to tell you how terrible this body were mutilated.

[155] Could you imagine you're going and bring this thing to your family members in that kind of condition?

[156] I could not see them guys, no matter how bold face they feel they are or they were to do that.

[157] By the time Manley got outside, he says the remains of the people killed at the fort had already been loaded into the open bed of a large truck.

[158] According to Manley's memory, he and two other officers jumped into a Suzuki van to follow the truck to Calabini.

[159] They stopped at a fire station to pick up gasoline and tires, and they made their way toward the camp.

[160] Remember, there was a shoot -on -site curfew, so the roads were empty.

[161] They got to Calabini, but to get to the camp at the top of the hill, they had to get up a steep dirt road.

[162] He says it was pouring, so the road had turned into mud.

[163] The amount of rain, the amount of rain that fell at night, the truck, he took coming almost three quarter of an hour before he was able to reach up that hill.

[164] Because every time it's kids down to the drain, so it was a struggle to get it on the road, to go up the hill, and then to unload.

[165] They found a trench on the outskirts of the camp.

[166] No, the place where the bodies were placed, it was not someone that was dog any time in preparation for that activity.

[167] It was jowed there with all kind of old thing in it.

[168] The bodies were taken down from the truck, placed into the same pit.

[169] Did you help with that?

[170] Did you carry some of the bodies?

[171] Well, what I have to tell you the truth, no, I did not.

[172] I was there.

[173] I did not.

[174] Manley says his only order was to supervise the process.

[175] So you were watching them take the...

[176] Yes, I watched.

[177] I looked on.

[178] In what state were the bodies, did you see the bodies, and how were the bodies taken out of the truck?

[179] You know, I like to always refer to my recollection.

[180] I can't remember seeing the bodies in any sheet.

[181] or whatever it is.

[182] I believe up to that point, whatever clothes the person would have had on them, that is how they would have placed in the empty hold.

[183] After that, he says that the soldiers put tires on top of the remains.

[184] They douse the tires in gasoline, and then they lit it all up.

[185] And he says they left Calabini.

[186] We left it burning.

[187] We left it burning.

[188] And I presume it would not have borne for long, because you can just put it over tire.

[189] just like that and I speak it to bone for the whole night.

[190] That would not have happened.

[191] And I don't think that took more than an hour and a half generally before we left.

[192] And then we returned to the unit, the headquarters.

[193] Manley says it was too dark to see exactly how many people were unloaded from the truck and who was who.

[194] But his description of the bodies of the executed people being moved to Calvini, that squares with testimony from witnesses in the murder trial that happened a few years later.

[195] Other soldiers, an army cook, they also said that they saw the bodies put onto a truck and placed in the trench at Calabini.

[196] And at least two of the defendants said that all eight people who were executed were taken there.

[197] Manley says he never came back to the pit, which left me with a question after we wrapped up.

[198] What he said about presuming the fire could not have burned for too long.

[199] I wondered how much damage the fire could have actually done to the remains if that was the case.

[200] We tracked down another soldier who was there a day or two after the bodies were left in the pit.

[201] So what do you all want to know?

[202] What do you all?

[203] Well, so we're trying to figure out...

[204] This guy, Roosevelt Daniel, said that he went up to Calvaney during daylight.

[205] He had been given a bag and ordered to dispose of it there in the pit.

[206] We don't know what was in the bag, and Roosevelt said that he never looked inside.

[207] After we arrive, we take things, we pick up things from the fort.

[208] And we go down to Calivini and choose them, dumb them way.

[209] They actually burn them people, you know, burn the bodies and things like that.

[210] I know I might be hard to fully understand this, but he's saying that he picked the things up from the fort where the executions took place.

[211] And then he brought a bag to the pit where the bodies had been left.

[212] How big was the fire when you got there?

[213] Well, you didn't have really, to say, fire.

[214] You see the little smoke and things, you know, coming up and things like that, but to see the actually fire, I didn't see the actually fire.

[215] Oh, so it wasn't like a big fire.

[216] It was just kind of a big fire.

[217] Oh, wow.

[218] And he told us that the remains were still visible.

[219] The fire lit on the 19th was not enough to turn the remains.

[220] into ash.

[221] We've talked to a couple forensic experts about this.

[222] We described to them this scenario.

[223] What would happen to a group of bodies if they were placed in a pit, covered in tires, doused in gasoline, and set on fire?

[224] They said that they didn't think those circumstances would result in the cremation of a body.

[225] It takes hours and hours of sustained, super intense flames to cremate a body, basically a furnace.

[226] Putting bodies in a pit, starting a fire in the rain and then leaving it, that wouldn't do it.

[227] So that's all to say.

[228] Based on our reporting, I feel pretty solid about this fact.

[229] At the end of the night of October 19th and for at least day after, those bodies were still in that trench.

[230] And that brings us to the other clue from Annie's story.

[231] Those police officers from the Caribbean peacekeeping troops who showed up at her door.

[232] Remember, she said that these officers brought her jewelry to identify, a bracelet that belonged to Mory's Bishop, along with her husband's ring.

[233] To show me and to know if I recognized any of it, and I recognize Norris ring.

[234] And I told him, I say, you must have gotten the ring on a finger.

[235] She couldn't understand.

[236] Where did they get this jewelry from?

[237] If they had the ring her husband was wearing when he died, didn't that mean that they had his body?

[238] There's a lot that Annie Bain did not remember about that encounter.

[239] Like I said, she couldn't remember exactly what day it was.

[240] She also couldn't remember exactly how many officers were there.

[241] But she did remember a name.

[242] After the break, the search to find Annie's police officer.

[243] Annie Bain had told us that the officers who showed up at her door with her husband's ring were not from Grenada.

[244] They were actually from Barbados.

[245] And to explain why there were officers from Barbados in Grenada, we need to go back to October 25, 1983.

[246] six days after the executions of Maurice Bishop and those who died with him.

[247] It's a Tuesday.

[248] In Washington, at the White House, reporters are gathered in the press briefing room, and they're waiting for the president.

[249] These reporters are here because they've heard that America might have just launched a secret invasion of a country with a population of less than 100 ,000 people.

[250] And the reporters want to know why.

[251] Here is the prime minister and also the president of the United States.

[252] When President Ronald Reagan walks into the room, he's not alone.

[253] The first person who enters is Eugenia Charles, the prime minister of the Caribbean island of Dominica.

[254] May I make a statement?

[255] Then I shall present you.

[256] Early this morning, forces from six Caribbean democracies and the United States began a landing, or landing, on the island of Grenada in the eastern Caribbean.

[257] Reporters knew that a ship, the USS Guam, had been diverted to the Caribbean, and they'd heard that American troops had started parachuting onto the island.

[258] What reports have you received of the success of the operation?

[259] The initial operation of landing, securing the immediate targets, taking control of the airports, completely successful.

[260] Reporters also wanted to understand why the U .S. had gone in.

[261] Why it was an America's national interest to launch an attack on an island at the other side of the Caribbean Sea?

[262] And Reagan had an answer for that, too.

[263] American lives are at stake.

[264] We've been following the situation as closely as possible.

[265] Between 800 and 1 ,000 Americans, including many medical students, and senior citizens, make up the largest single group of foreign residents in Grenada.

[266] By the way, this was all happening just a few years after the Iran hostage crisis, when embassy workers, were kept as prisoners for over a year.

[267] So Reagan had been worried that these students in Grenada could be taken as hostages to.

[268] He also made it clear that the U .S. didn't just up and decide to invade on their own.

[269] We acceded to the request to become part of a multinational effort with contingents from Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, San Lucia, St. Vincent, and the United States.

[270] I do have to point out here.

[271] It's actually Antigua and St. Lucia.

[272] And then all of them joined unanimously in asking us to participate.

[273] And that's when Prime Minister Eugenia Charles started to speak.

[274] I think we were all very horrified that the events which took place recently in Grenada.

[275] We as part of the organization of East Caribbean states, realizing it we are, of course, one region.

[276] We belong to each other.

[277] Our kith and kin, we all have members of our state living in Grenada.

[278] At one point in this news conference, a reporter asked, the president.

[279] We don't think that the United States has the right to invade another country to change its government.

[280] But I don't think it's an invasion, if I may answer that question.

[281] You can hear how Prime Minister Charles jumped right in there.

[282] This is a question of asking for support.

[283] We are one region.

[284] Grenada is part and parcel of us in organization.

[285] And we don't have the capacity ourselves to see to it that Canadians get the freedom that they require to have to choose their own government.

[286] So this is why there were Caribbean peacekeeping forces in Grenada just after the U .S. invasion.

[287] The mission was called Operation Urgent Fury.

[288] It started with that first wave of U .S. troops.

[289] They took control of the airport and evacuated the students and faculty at the medical school.

[290] They helped put in place a new interim government.

[291] They also killed at least 69 Grenadian and Cuban soldiers.

[292] As we heard, Reagan initially called the invasion.

[293] completely successful.

[294] But that wasn't the full picture.

[295] We'll go deeper into this in a couple episodes, but what you need to know now is that the whole operation was later criticized for disorganization and poor planning.

[296] 19 American troops were killed during the invasion.

[297] Some of them were victims of friendly fire or accidents, including helicopter crashes.

[298] The U .S. also accidentally bombed a Grenadian mental hospital, killing many patients.

[299] In total, more than, than 20 civilians were killed in the course of the invasion.

[300] Along with the U .S. troops, there were those Caribbean peacekeeping troops, several hundred of them.

[301] The largest numbers came from Jamaica and Barbados.

[302] They were put in charge of guarding the prison, escorting prisoners of war, securing important government buildings, and questioning Grenadians about the events of October 19th.

[303] My guess was, this is where Annie's police officer came in.

[304] If we could somehow find him, that could help answer the question of what happened to the bodies after they were left in the Calvany Army camp.

[305] I said earlier that Annie had a name.

[306] The problem was she only had part of a name.

[307] I only know him as prophet.

[308] Profits.

[309] He introduced himself to me as prophet.

[310] How did you spell that?

[311] He was from Barbados.

[312] D -R -A -T -W -A -I -T.

[313] I think so.

[314] Okay.

[315] And he was with the Bayesian.

[316] Bayesian, if you don't know, is how you say, from Barbados.

[317] Yes, he was the head of the peacekeeping from Barbados.

[318] In the British West Indies, the surname Brathwaite, which is often pronounced Braffett, is a very common name.

[319] Luckily, we found a first name pretty quickly in documents related to the criminal trial of the people convicted for murdering Morris Bishop.

[320] There was a mention of testimony given by a police officer from Barbados, a sergeant, Colin Braffitt.

[321] Police control.

[322] Good afternoon.

[323] Hi, good afternoon.

[324] My name is Martin Powers.

[325] I'm calling from the Washington Post.

[326] I am trying to track down someone who used to be a police officer in Barbados.

[327] His name is Colin Brathwaite.

[328] Is there anyone...

[329] Rich Brat.

[330] Yeah, yeah, like BR.

[331] H. Rich Brfitt.

[332] Rich Brfitt.

[333] See?

[334] Lots of brefits.

[335] Colin.

[336] Colin.

[337] And then after being transferred.

[338] Well, he used to work here before, but he has retired, so...

[339] Hmm.

[340] How long ago did he retire?

[341] Um, he left here, but when a whole long?

[342] One 10 years?

[343] Okay.

[344] Um, do you...

[345] Do you know where I could reach him at home, or...

[346] No, not exactly, no. So, I turned to Facebook.

[347] I tried all the Bayesian Colin Braffitts there.

[348] I tried LinkedIn.

[349] I went down a rabbit hole trying to find a Colin Braffat in Guyana.

[350] I needed help.

[351] I needed help.

[352] someone with connections, someone who could track down anyone.

[353] What I needed was an auntie.

[354] Hello.

[355] Hi, Auntie Ray.

[356] Philip?

[357] No, this is Martine.

[358] This is Francine's daughter, Martine.

[359] Oh, how are you, my dear?

[360] Good.

[361] How are you?

[362] Not too bad.

[363] What's up?

[364] This is my auntie Ray.

[365] Ray Skinner.

[366] She's Trinidadian, but she's been living in Barbados for more than 20 years.

[367] And she's technically not my aunt.

[368] She went to high school with my mother.

[369] mom.

[370] But you know how it is.

[371] Your mom's friend is your auntie.

[372] Okay.

[373] So who is it you want to meet up with?

[374] So it's an older gentleman named Colin Rathwaite.

[375] That is such a common name, Martin.

[376] Such a common name.

[377] But what does he, like in what area, I could definitely find out for you.

[378] I explained to her the whole deal that he was this cop who went to Grenada sometime 40 years ago.

[379] No, I could definitely, I know enough people who will know him.

[380] Okay.

[381] So you can help?

[382] So, yeah, so give me the weekend.

[383] Well, how did you find they got from the airport?

[384] Oh, it was easy.

[385] Okay.

[386] It ended up taking longer than a weekend, but Auntie Ray did deliver.

[387] And a few months later, I was in Barbados, driving a rented Chevy Equinox up Highway 2A.

[388] and Auntie Ray was riding shotgun.

[389] So when you're in this lane, you either have to go straight.

[390] Or to the left.

[391] Right, or to the left.

[392] What Auntie Ray had managed to figure out was that former sergeant Colin Braffett was active at an Anglican church in a small town on the other side of Barbados from where she lives.

[393] She had tried calling that church, I had tried calling, we never heard back.

[394] So we were driving out there.

[395] That's it, yes.

[396] Yeah, she had to live the last.

[397] It was Sunday morning.

[398] We dressed up in church clothes, drove for about 45 minutes, and there it was.

[399] The stone building not far from the coast.

[400] There were people outside the church setting up for a lunch.

[401] Hi.

[402] Sorry to do.

[403] I'm actually looking for Mr. Colin Braffat.

[404] Do you know what you?

[405] Colin Brackett?

[406] Yeah.

[407] Well, he's inside.

[408] He's an...

[409] He's not all to serve us, right?

[410] Colin is 75 years old.

[411] When I went up to him, he was chatting with members of the congregation.

[412] I explained to him who I was, what I was doing, and he was like, what?

[413] Okay, go get some food, and I'll come find you later.

[414] Finally, he came to sit down by Auntie Ray and me, and he said he didn't want to be interviewed.

[415] He said he didn't like thinking about that time, and he didn't think that anything he had to say would be useful.

[416] I told him, look, I'm going to be in Barbados, staying with my aunt for another couple days.

[417] Just think about it a little bit more.

[418] And then we left.

[419] So you don't think he's going to call?

[420] I don't think so.

[421] I don't think so.

[422] I looked, I looked, I kept looking at him and I were looking into his eyes.

[423] And his eyes were back then.

[424] He looked at you like this, you know, it's kind of suspiciously.

[425] But he remembers everything.

[426] I felt that, too.

[427] And so, when I didn't hear back from him, I just called him again.

[428] And he said, okay, come by tomorrow and we'll talk.

[429] Hi, Mr. Brathet.

[430] I am parked up by the church.

[431] So should I come in the car or just walk?

[432] Okay, okay.

[433] So it turns out that Colin actually pronounces his last name, Brathwaite, not Brathe.

[434] And he retired from the police in 2014.

[435] He was a detective, a forensic specialist, the CSI guy.

[436] Its work that he found, challenging, but also made him proud.

[437] He liked to be the guy who could give people answers.

[438] I loved it.

[439] To be able to interpret a crime scene and say, well, look, this is what happened, that is what happened.

[440] Back in 1983, when he was sent to Grenada, Colin was in his mid -30s.

[441] He arrived just a few days after the start of the U .S. invasion, so about a week and a half after the executions.

[442] I asked him what he thought about the Americans' decision to go into Grenada.

[443] Politically and militarily, I can't say to you that that was my concern.

[444] When we got there, we were supposed to investigate the matter at hand.

[445] That was the death of Morris Bishop and all the other people.

[446] That was our understanding.

[447] and it was my job to find out how it happened and who did it.

[448] Though the invasion was a joint mission with the Americans, Colin said that he was only working with officers from other Caribbean countries.

[449] So once you got there and you learned that your job was going to be to investigate these murders of Maurice Bishop and the other people who died with him, how did you start that process?

[450] What, like, what do you do to begin?

[451] in the investigation?

[452] Well, how would I describe it?

[453] This, it would be the normal investigative techniques that you wrote, trying to get witnesses and things like that, trying to find out what happened.

[454] The normal thing that you would do, if you're going to investigate any matter, any murder, you know, you're trying to get your witnesses, your information, and so on, and work from there.

[455] Colin said that some of these interviews were tough, tracking down witnesses in a country he didn't know well, talking to distraught family members, and interviewing the people who would later be convicted of murder.

[456] Yeah, I remembered all of them.

[457] There's some people that you wouldn't really forget, Bernard Court and so on.

[458] There were quite a number of them.

[459] Colin's job wasn't just about interviewing witnesses and suspects.

[460] He was looking for evidence to.

[461] especially the bodies.

[462] I asked him to explain why finding the bodies was so important.

[463] I mean, people knew that Bishop had been killed.

[464] It's not like there was a question about whether Bishop was dead or not, right?

[465] Yeah, but that's what people knew.

[466] Now you've got to approve it from your investigations.

[467] So they have the body, then we can have post -martim done and so on and so forth, you know.

[468] So like in any other murder case, you want to get your body.

[469] And that's why it was a big breakthrough when Colin tracked down a witness who gave him a tip.

[470] He received some, I was incredible information of where the bodies were buried.

[471] My information was that the bodies were at Calvini.

[472] When Colin heard this, he was excited, but also cautious.

[473] It was waiting or surrey.

[474] best to see if they can get a pathologist, a forensic pathologist, to accompany to the, if he was going to do the excavation.

[475] And so I had to reach out to our pathologists here.

[476] In Barbados.

[477] In Barbados.

[478] Why did you want to wait for the pathologist to be there?

[479] Why not just take the bodies out and bring the pathologist later?

[480] No. No. If you're doing investigations, you've got to do it right.

[481] Correct.

[482] So Colin and a group of police did.

[483] didn't go out to that grave until a few days later.

[484] We think that this would have been several weeks after the executions.

[485] And when they got there, they found the trench.

[486] But immediately, Colin knew something was strange.

[487] Yeah, well, the air was all dug up and there was caution tip around it, you know.

[488] That's the first thing when they got there that allured to me that someone was there.

[489] someone had gotten to the grave before him.

[490] Did you get the impression that it was freshly opened, that it had been open for a long time?

[491] No, you know, you would have seen that it would have been freshly open.

[492] You could have seen that.

[493] And did you see any evidence of human remains?

[494] No, I don't remember seeing any remorse.

[495] No. I can say who took them, who didn't take them, But no bodies were there when I excavated the grave.

[496] And that's all I can say.

[497] That must be very frustrating if a big part of your investigation is looking for these bodies.

[498] It was.

[499] I can tell you that it was.

[500] At that time, I was pretty angry, really.

[501] Colin had wanted to find these bodies because they were important to his investigation.

[502] But most of all, he knew that they would be important to the families of the victims.

[503] Instead, all he found was an empty grave, or at least an almost empty grave.

[504] What he found then were things like jewelry, rings and things like that, which we took into our possession.

[505] And the jewelry was it, where was the jewelry?

[506] That would have been in the, in the soil, you know.

[507] had to be dug up and so on, so that would have been in the soil.

[508] He collected those pieces of jewelry.

[509] He knew that they'd later be used as evidence that he'd submit to the court.

[510] And he took them to the families of the victims to be identified.

[511] He remembers bringing them to Morace Bishop's mother, Alimenta Bishop, who died a decade ago.

[512] And he remembers bringing them to Annie Bain.

[513] I remember her very well.

[514] What do you remember about her as a person, what she is like?

[515] Well, she was very strong to me. I haven't lost her husband under those circumstances.

[516] She was pretty strong.

[517] Colin still remembers a story that Annie told him about driving home through the darkness on the night of her husband's murder.

[518] And he still remembers the way to her house.

[519] I have a hobby.

[520] And it's driving through countries on YouTube.

[521] This is a thing on YouTube that I only learned about after Colin told me about this hobby.

[522] There are these hour -long videos of scenic drives around the world that people post online.

[523] And one of the virtual drives he takes is along this road that comes down from Granitang Forest near Annie's home.

[524] So when I drive through Granitein, I always look for if it's been left.

[525] When Annie opened her door 40 years ago and saw Colin and other officers with her husband's ring, She thought it had meant that they had seen her husband's body, and she couldn't understand why they couldn't explain what had happened to his remains.

[526] But now I knew that that's because Colin also didn't know what had happened to his remains.

[527] He was confused, too.

[528] This man who loved his job because he could give people answers about a crime, give them closure, he didn't have an answer for her.

[529] The jewelry that Colin found at the grave, he did later present it as evidence in court.

[530] His understanding was that it was then returned to the possession of the Grenadian police.

[531] He doesn't know what happened to it after that.

[532] We've asked Grenada's Attorney General, as well as other members of the government, about the whereabouts of this jewelry and whether it could be returned to people like Annie Bain.

[533] They said they'd look into it.

[534] We followed up a couple times, but we haven't received an update as of publishing this episode.

[535] Did you find any other evidence of bodies, or were you able to – get further in locating those bodies?

[536] No. Why not?

[537] Well.

[538] And this is when Colin seemed to start speaking more carefully.

[539] It appears to me as though the information we received was leaked, and other persons took the opportunity to get there before us.

[540] Who, who, according to your understanding, who found the bodies before you guys?

[541] got there.

[542] I can't see it because I wasn't there.

[543] Do you, and I know that you don't know for sure, but what was going through your mind at the time of who you thought it might be that had already dug up the area?

[544] I thought we had a really good idea of whom there would have been, but I don't, I don't want to mention out now.

[545] So did you think it was Grenadians who did it?

[546] Oh, I don't think so.

[547] So do you think it was Americans that did it?

[548] I think the, I don't know, but the information that was going to wrong at the time was mostly indicated that, but as I said, I don't know.

[549] Then I pulled out my phone and showed him a photo I'd saved.

[550] Have you seen this photo before?

[551] Mm -mm.

[552] It was a black and white news photo, taken by a photographer for the Associated Press on November 8th.

[553] 1983.

[554] Hmm.

[555] No. I have never seen this before.

[556] So this, you have some more?

[557] The photos I'm showing Colin are of the pit at Calvaney.

[558] They were taken three weeks after the executions.

[559] They are of a group of men, mostly soldiers with the U .S. Army.

[560] Some of the soldiers are inside of the pit.

[561] Some are standing around it at its edge.

[562] In one of the photos, two soldiers are next to the pit, holding either end of the pit.

[563] of a body bag.

[564] One of the soldiers is midstep, and it looks like they're starting to carry the body bag away.

[565] So you weren't at that scene.

[566] No. I took Colin through everything that we know about what happened after those photos were taken, and I told him that the U .S. insists that it does not have information about the whereabouts of the remains.

[567] That's what they say?

[568] They have, the U .S. government, the State Department, says to this day, they don't have the bodies of Maurice Bishop and the others, and they don't know where they are.

[569] Well, but you see this photograph.

[570] All right.

[571] Okay.

[572] I've never seen these pictures before.

[573] This is the first time I'm seeing these.

[574] Yeah, this is the first time I'm seeing these.

[575] And there is more to this than just these photos.

[576] If you were in the U .S. watching the news in November of 1983, you might have seen this.

[577] Although the shootings at the fort occurred almost three weeks ago, most of the bodies are still missing, including those of Prime Minister Bishop and his cabinet members.

[578] That's the voice of Mark Potter, a correspondent for ABC News.

[579] This is a TV report that he filed from Grenada that aired on November 8, 1983.

[580] On the screen, you can see the same scene as the one in the photo that I showed Colin.

[581] Soldiers with the U .S. Army gathered at Calvany.

[582] They are standing around a pit.

[583] Some of them seem to be digging.

[584] Mark Potter is out in front of them.

[585] This afternoon, a U .S. Army Graves registration team began unearthing human remains that are destroyed Grenadian Army fort.

[586] They were told of the site by a civilian cook who said the bodies of Bishop and three others were dumped into this trench and burned.

[587] The Army says it may take several days to make a positive identification.

[588] So here is what we know.

[589] On that Tuesday in November of 1983, the U .S. military did find bodies in a pit.

[590] at Calabini.

[591] They exhumed them.

[592] And this wasn't done quietly.

[593] It happened, at least in part, in front of reporters and photographers who were at the scene.

[594] We also know that two days later, those bodies were examined by a forensic team from the U .S. This team was sent at the request of the U .S. State Department to try to figure out if these remains belonged to Maurice Bishop and the other people executed with him.

[595] There were not many Grenadians who were aware of of all this when it was happening.

[596] As far as we know, reports by American news outlets were not filtering back to Grenadians at that time.

[597] But in subsequent years, more Grenadians have heard about what happened at Calvini.

[598] They have seen the photos that I showed to Colin.

[599] They've heard about the forensic exam.

[600] Some of them have even seen the results of that exam.

[601] But those results were complicated.

[602] And when they started to get around, that is when people began to ask, What exactly happened in this exam?

[603] That day, they called and said, we're bringing some bodies over.

[604] The Army wants to look at some bodies.

[605] Can we use your gross lab?

[606] That is next time on the empty grave of Comrade Bishop.

[607] If you want to see the photos that I showed to Sergeant Colin Brathwaite, including the photo of U .S. soldiers carrying a body bag out of that pit, you will definitely want to check out our episode guide.

[608] That is where we've been compiling photos, videos, documents, and other archival material from our reporting.

[609] You can find it at Washington Post .com slash Empty Grave.

[610] There's also a link in our show notes.

[611] Episode 4 will be out next week on Wednesday, November 8th.

[612] But subscribers to the Washington Post can access it on Monday, two days early on Apple Podcasts.

[613] If you're already a subscriber to the post, you can connect your subscription automatically through the Washington Post channel on Apple Podcasts.

[614] And if you are not yet a post subscriber, go to WashingtonPost .com slash subscribe, or look for the link in our show notes.

[615] And if you've got thoughts on what you've heard so far in the series, we would love to hear from you.

[616] Hit us up at Emptygrave at Washpost .com.

[617] The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop was reported and produced by me, Martine Powers, along with Ted Muldoon and Reni Svranoski.

[618] Our editors are Sarah Childress and Renita Jablonski.

[619] Fact -checking by Nicole Pesolka.

[620] Mixediting by Theo Balcom.

[621] Our series theme and music is by Keshav, Chandedasth Singh.

[622] Mixing, sound design, and additional music by Ted Muldoon and Renni Svrnowski.

[623] Our show art was designed by Lucy Nailand, project editing by Casey Schaper.

[624] Thank you to Alison Michaels.

[625] And a shout -out to Auntie Ray.

[626] Finally, if you've been appreciating what you've heard so far, we would love if you could rate and review us on your podcast.

[627] app, and also share it with friends and family that you think would be into this story.

[628] Thank you so much for listening to The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop, and we will see you next week for episode four.