Anna-Lisa Paul
Senior Reporter
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Wayne Mystar has been named as the new head of the Trinidad and Tobago Municipal Police Service (TTMPS).
He will replace former head Surrendra Sagramsingh, who was sent on administrative leave on Tuesday.
Claims began circulating yesterday that Mystar, who himself had been on vacation leave from the T&T Police Service (TTPS) since September 2025, had been selected to lead the organisational and operational shake-up currently underway in the TTMPS. It was later confirmed by Guardian Media.
Mystar’s appointment comes as the ongoing investigation into the murder of acting Cpl Anusha Eversley, along with the theft of a cache of arms and ammunition from the Municipal Police Headquarters, Lady Hailes Avenue, San Fernando, on Sunday, continues.
Everlsey, 42, a mother of three, with over 19 years of service, was discovered dead in the station – while the safe had been emptied of all firearms and ammunition.
A post-mortem determined she was strangled and beaten.
While the TTPS is yet to confirm just how many guns and ammunition had been stolen, an official update on Tuesday claimed 43 guns and over 900 rounds of ammunition were recovered during operations between Sunday and Tuesday.
A total of ten people, including two municipal police officers, remained in custody up to yesterday.
Investigators were given the go-ahead to charge a 28-year-old colleague of Eversley’s with her murder on Tuesday night by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Roger Gaspard, but the Claxton Bay officer is yet to be charged.
He was also expected to be slapped with a slew of charges, including robbery with violence, trafficking in firearms and possession of ammunition.
Sources confirmed that investigators will be consulting with the DPP today regarding charges for two more suspects.
Wendell Eversely slams those smearing niece’s name:
WPC Eversley’s uncle, social and political activist Wendell Eversley, is blasting Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander and Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro, following claims that a ring of officers attached to the San Fernando Municipal Police Station was involved in corrupt and illicit activities, including the sale of firearms and ammunition over the past eight months.
He declared the current State of Emergency (SoE) had proven to be a failure.
Addressing reporters outside Parliament yesterday, he said: “Mr Police Commissioner, Mr Alexander, where was your intelligence that could have prevented a crime?”
He added, “The purpose of this SoE is prevention. The purpose is interdiction. You have done neither.
“You have waited for someone to die, my niece. For weapons to be in the hands of criminals, and now who have them?”
Eversley continued, “The call to beat your chest and say you are successful in crime management in a State of Emergency, this has been going on for eight months, and nobody gathered intelligence on this to stop it.”
A former hostage during the 1990 coup, Eversley trained his anger on the TTPS, as he argued that they were the ones responsible for gathering intelligence.
He expressed disgust as he asked, “You are telling me that not one shred of information was gathered under this prolonged SoE to stop what is happening to my niece?
“The Prime Minister, by her own words, by her own admission, said eight months something going on and only because of the murder they now know, and the words of a senior police officer who said that this matter has been going on for eight months now.”
Demanding that Persad-Bissessar name the officer in question, Eversley insisted, “Failure to act is also an offence.
“So, Madam Prime Minister, you have admitted that this SoE is failing. You have admitted that the police intelligence is failing. You have admitted that your Minister of National Security is failing. You have admitted that your Commissioner of Police is failing.”
Calling for an immediate end to the SoE, Eversley questioned if there was a crime plan in place, and if so, what it included and when it would take effect.
He also dismissed the false narratives being perpetuated against his niece by the “spin doctors.”
Calling on the country to consider the hurt and pain the murdered officer’s three children and other relatives had to endure every time a false account is published, Eversley said his niece’s elder child, aged 18, will be writing the CAPE exam in a couple of weeks, and he could not fathom what frame of mind she would be in.
He admitted, “When Monday reach, it will be pain.”
Funeral arrangements for Eversley are being finalised for Monday in San Fernando.
Staunchly defending his relative in the eyes of the public and social media users who continue to paint the murdered woman in a bad light, Eversley said, “It’s tarnishing a corporal who was murdered inside a police station, not outside a police station. It is tarnishing her name and also tarnishing the family’s name and especially tarnishing her children’s name.”
Referring to the person who allegedly made the claim that officer Eversley was involved in illicit activities, he said, “That person had to be heartless. That person don’t have no compassion.”
He said Eversley’s family was still in shock.
But he shared, “Anusha was a loving person.”
Recalling that he had been the master of ceremonies at her wedding, he said, “I saw Anusha grow up from a baby in California. Anusha was a reporter before she joined the municipal police.”
He said she was employed at the now defunct T&T Mirror newspaper.
He said the family is now having to endure the whispers and damaging misinformation in the public domain.
“I can’t believe this happened to a loving girl and whatever you see out there…there’s a God and I believe in God, right. When man fails you, God will not fail you.”
Asked if he believed Eversley was being fingered as the scapegoat in the situation, he directed that question to Persad-Bissessar and Guevarro.
He also declined to answer if he felt protocols and procedures had been breached on the night his niece was killed, as he said the investigation was active.
Eversley said he will soon host a walk/drive from the Arima Dial to the Red House to highlight the situation.
Hurting family says ‘enough is enough’
Reading from a letter penned by Eversley’s brother, whom he declined to name, the emotional uncle began, “It is with a heavy heart I write this statement. For the past few days, I have sat back and watched, listened as certain parts of society have impugned my deceased sister’s character. It has reached to a point now where it must be said enough is enough!
“Attacking a dead person who isn’t here to defend themselves, who died in such a heinous manner, is heartless, vile, despicable and utterly shameless.”
He begged, “Spare a thought for the grieving family shall we, and how these allegations affect them, because that’s all they are…allegations.”
The relative questioned, “If my sister was as corrupt as they say, how come this was never detected before?”
He lashed out, “Since we’re casting aspersions, what does it say about the other officers at that station? Are they complicit? What does it say about the checks and balances of the police service?”
Questioning the procedures in place regarding the handing over at the start of every shift, he asked, “How come no discrepancies were ever discovered?”
He too moved to preserve his dead sister’s name.
“My sister hasn’t even been put to rest, yet all these salacious stories are being bandied about in the media. How low as a society we have sunk. Those people who truly knew my sister would know she was a no-nonsense person, very jovial and extremely affable.”
He added, “She would give her last if someone asked, always willing to help. It hurts to see how her name is being sullied just for the sake of likes and views.”
Revealing the family had sought legal advice in the wake of publications in the Express, Eversley said his niece had been messaging her children whilst on duty that fateful night, yet never made it home alive.
He concluded, “Let any investigation take its course. But I know all those who trying to spin doc(tor) this situation. There’s a God above. You can spin doc(tor) for man. You can spin doc(tor) for the public, but you can’t spin doc(tor) for God.”
