TV anchorman slain; Police say there’s a witness who saw a suspect

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): Javier Garcia, a well-known anchorman with Radio Caracas Television Internacional (RCTV), the private sector channel that switched to cable after President Hugo Chavez refused to renew its broadcasting license, made the worst headlines of his life on Monday. He’d been found dead at his home in the middle class district of Colinas de Bello Monte in Caracas on Sunday, but it took a while for the story to get out. And, for once, coverage was curiously devoid of the gory detail that often reflects the morbid tendencies of reporters (and some of their readers) on the crime beat.

Whether the media knew more about the case than they were letting on, they eschewed to say at first. However, the website run by RCTV’s private sector rivals at Globovision spoke in terms of a "lamentable and violent" event.

For a while, it wasn’t even clear whether Garcia had simply been found dead or whether he’d died as a result of violence, and, if so, in what kind of circumstances.
Eventually, it emerged from an initial police report that he’d been stabbed three times in the chest and twice in the right thigh, and that he was dressed but shoeless.

The discovery is said to have been made by one of his brothers, who went to look him up after not hearing from him for two days. It remained unclear whether or not there had been a forced entry into Garcia’s apartment, or whether he had opened the door to whoever it was who stabbed him to death.

The scientific and investigative police, Cicpc, said they had taken testimony from a security guard at the gate of the building, who they said had given a description of a suspect and would be called in to help police artists draw up an Identikit portrait. The suspect is said to have attempted to leave the building with a suitcase in his hand. The guard reportedly prevented him from doing so in the absence of authorization from Garcia. Whether the guard tried to get in contact with García at the time remained unclear. No details of the suspect’s appearance were disclosed.

A discreet silence hung over any possible motives behind the killing, and again, this was uncharacteristic. However, the air of restraint gradually dissolved as the case gained momentum during the day.

Coincidence or not, Mayor Leopoldo Lopez of the generally well-ordered municipality of Chacao in central Caracas was reported Monday morning to have warned that the authorities could not go on trying to tackle the city’s violent crime rate with half-measures. Lopez said that measures recently initiated by the President after a wave of murderous attacks on bus drivers could not be put into effect because to do so would require 90,000 uniformed police officers to patrol the buses.