Stumped: Bob Woolmer Was Not Murdered
BOB Woolmer was not murdered.
Woolmer was not struck a fatal blow by a cricket ball as he and the Pakistani team played a game of corridor cricket.
Woolmer was not killed by poison, a deranged lover, al-Qaeda, drink, upset fans, a carton of mango and carrot juice, or the mafia. Bob Woolmer died of natural causes.
That, at least, is what the Express is reporting in “Woolmer police rule out murder”.
Of course, the Jamaican police have not ruled out murder. But they might. The news is that officers on the case “hope toxicology reports will show the Pakistan coach was the victim of a ‘sudden unexplained death’”.
Cynics may well say that this sudden unexplained death pretty much sums up the police progress so far. Woolmer’s death was sudden. And it is unexplained. Job done. Case closed.
But this new line focuses on death by natural causes. A Jamaican police source tells the Express how his country’s Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Shields has journeyed to South Africa to speak with Woolmer’s widow. Says the insider: “He was going to talk to her in terms of ‘sudden unexplained death’ rather than murder.”
This is the cue for conspiracy theorists to get to work. A man is dead. Police fail to catch the killer or killers. And now the case approaches an altogether unsatisfactory conclusion.
What price a welter of books on the matter and the story turned into a made-for-TV movie?
It’s cricket’s most enduring whodunit since Shane Warne appeared in public with a fuller, shaggier and more highlighted head of hair.
And everyone and no-one is a suspect…
Posted: 14th, May 2007 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
