Earlier this week, The Times, a leading British daily newspaper reported that a top British pathologist had concluded that Bob Woolmer, the Pakistani coach found dead in his hotel room at the Pegasus less than a week after the ICC World Cup of Cricket had bowled off, was not strangled. It was yet another twist in this ongoing saga in which the Jamaican police seem to be trying to solve a murder that, well, was not a murder. At least, that's what I feel.

In these times when science and technology can help determine the cause of death in short order, the Jamaican authorities are as convinced about who or what killed Bob Woolmer as the British are about the identity of Jack the Ripper or the Americans are about the Zodiac killer.

It's almost if the person dies and he was not shot or stabbed, the police get confused. Mark Shields said as much when he was interviewed by Panorama, a show on BBC television a few weeks ago. First Woolmer was strangled, then he was poisoned and then he was poisoned then strangled. Make up your damn minds already. How many more scenarios can they continue to come up with before they realise that the man just drop down, lick him head pan di toilet bowl and dead?

Fleeing evil?

I would have dropped dead too knowing the manner of evil I was going to face after I got back to Pakistan where they were already burning effigies of the players and possibly looking to do the same to their homes.

So, because of all this waffling from the Jamaican police, I am now more inclined to believe the expert in London, who, after examining the post-mortem report and looking over the pictures and other evidence, concluded that the former English cricketer was not strangled. His conclusion gives even further credence to another report that suggested that Scotland Yard detectives believe Woolmer died of natural causes - heart failure to be specific.

I am also inclined to believe that the evidence shows that the Jamaican police have become murder shy.

I mean, it was bound to happen sooner or later. An undermanned force can only deal with so many thousand murders before they start seeing every death as a potential homicide. Think about it, if every time someone reaches out their hand to you they slap you in the face, after a while if someone reaches out to shake your hard, you're going to flinch, expecting a slap where none was forthcoming.

Seeing murders

It has got to a point now where they are seeing murders even when the evidence says there was none.

So when Woolmer dies, as the entire cricket world has its eyes upon the murder capital of the world, and just after Pakistan led by idiot Inzamam ul-Haq loses to Ireland, it was only natural that things were going to look suspicious.

But someone should have had the smarts then to say that Woolmer just fell dead, as people are prone to do sometimes.

The unfortunate thing right now for the police is that they can't just get up now and say there was no murder. For one, they would all look like fools (not that that takes much to do) and it also would bring into question every murder investigation conducted in recent times. How, for example, could the police honestly go to court accusing someone of murder when they couldn't tell the difference between heart failure and strangulation?

When all is said and done though, someone needs to bring closure to this investigation. It is beginning to feel like a thorn in your shoe, an annoyance that only keeps Jamaica's name in the public eye for all the wrong reasons.

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