Six and Out - Some Serious Cricket

Any leads in Woolmer case?

by SixandOut on April 12th, 2007

Exactly no revealing information has surfaced about the Woolmer case recently, leading me to speculation that those involved simply haven’t got a clue who the perpetrator(s) was. About the most we know is that Jamaican police have just sent some CCTV footage to the UK for analysis. One wonders why it has taken over three weeks to fulfil such an obvious task. In fact, the whole bloody operation is being plagued by delays. Just look at the timeline. I know the West Indies aren’t as developed as other places in the World, but are they really so backwards that it’s impossible to get some toxicology results back in less than 8 weeks?

Well, in place of any real information, it’s down to the armchair investigators to go to work in figuring out whodunnit. There are plenty of conspiracy theories floating about, and ChickenDinner has summed them up:

• Deranged fan. The clinical nature of the murder, lack of evidence of a struggle and the report that Pakistan player Danish Kaneria in the room next door heard nothing makes an assault by an enraged yet stealthy cricket fan highly improbable. Neither is there a precedent for it. While effigy-burning at times of sporting failure are not uncommon in Pakistan, there were no reports of angry fans trying to get at Bob Woolmer.
• Inzamam-ul-Haq. Only the players know the true nature of the relationship between the former manager and the team, but premature elimination from a cricket tournament is not a motive for murder, and none of the team are suspects. Neither are there reports of them blaming Woolmer for their elimination. If match-fixing revelations were genuinely being considered as a motive, then it is odd that the team has been allowed to leave Jamaica. After all, you can’t match fix without the help of at least one person on the field.
• Trained assassin. Police found no marks on Bob Woolmer’s neck, which makes it unlikely he was strangled by a rope or a cable, and according to people expert in these matters, murderers rarely strangle men with their bare hands from the front as they don’t have the strength or height advantage that they have over women. The absence of a struggle, lack of evidence or witnesses suggests a level of sophistication rarely found outside of the cinema. DPC Shields told one newspaper that this idea was not being pursued, as it seemed the victim knew his attacker.
• “The Bookie”. According to the Sun, two Pakistan players said that Woolmer had thrown an Indian bookmaker out of this room. No one has been able identify this person or explain what he was doing there, and the theory is being treated “sceptically by senior Jamaican detectives”, says the Guardian.
• Three mysterious Pakistanis. Police are seeking three men who were staying at the same hotel and who left the day Bob Woolmer died. They are believed to have socialised with the team, but police have given no explanation as to why they are being sought, nor is it unusual to leave once one’s team is no longer participating. Feels like straw-clutching.
• “Officials”. The match-fixing theory supposes that Woolmer was about to blow the whistle on the involvement of high ranking officials in match-fixing, or “man-fixing”, in which the outcome of individual events within a match is fiddled with, such as a batsman getting out cheaply, rather than the overall score. No evidence has yet been presented that Woolmer intended to do this. The News of the World has an interview with Woolmer’s friend Clive Rice, but his only piece of evidence is a conversation he had with Woolmer in 1999. No one has produced a manuscript or other evidence that Woolmer planned to write such a book or was even in possession of such information.
• No one. This case has a body and a post mortem report, but nothing else to indicate that this death was caused by a third person. Remember, people were shocked but not particularly surprised when it was announced that Woolmer had been found dead - he was not a slender man and was under intense pressure. As the incident is currently lacking in any of the elements that conventionally constitute a murder scene (and not a single person saw or heard anything suspicious in a crowded hotel) isn’t it also plausible to conclude that the absence of a murder scene implies the absence of a murder, and that the results of the post mortem are flawed, not the investigation?

Feelings? I’m not convinced it was Inzy, but it could easily be any of the others. Although it hardly bears thinking about if it turns out that this actually was not a murder.

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