Bob Woolmer died of natural causes · 2007-06-13 12:03
Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer died of natural causes and wasn't murdered, Jamaican police said today, reversing their original assessment of his death at the World Cup in March.
Pakistan's former cricket coach Bob Woolmer puts his team through their paces during a training session near Port of Spain, in this March 8, 2007 file photo. Woolmer died of natural causes, and not of murder as initially suspected, Jamaican police said on June 12, 2007.
According to China Daily, police initially said Woolmer was strangled when he was found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room on March 18 after his highly rated team lost to little fancied Ireland in the Cricket World Cup, triggering speculation he had been murdered by an irate fan or an illegal gambling syndicate.
Woolmer's death was consistent with a heart attack, three independent pathologists decided. They rejected a conclusion by a first pathologist that Woolmer had a broken bone in his neck, a judgment that prompted police to say he was strangled.
Cricket was plunged into crisis when Jamaican police said the 58-year-old Briton was strangled in his room in Kingston’s Jamaica Pegasus Hotel on March 18, less than 24 hours after Pakistan was eliminated from the World Cup in an upset loss to Ireland.
Today's announcement follows an independent report into the death by London's Scotland Yard police force, based on an autopsy by U.K. pathologist Nat Carey. He, along with forensic specialists from South Africa and Canada, examined the bone from Woolmer’s neck and concluded that it hadn’t been broken.
Jamaica's deputy police commissioner Mark Shields, who led the investigation, defended the conduct of his force, which began a hunt for Woolmer's killer on the basis on the first forensic report. There will be a review into the investigation team's conduct, Thomas said.
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