Haig Gilbey Caesar, 38, was found dead in his car on St. Croix on May 24, 1984. The vehicle had apparently driven off the road without signs of a collision or struggle. An autopsy determined the cause of death was cyanide poisoning.

Before he died, Caesar had become involved with a man claiming to be an Obiaman, a practitioner of Obia. The man told Caesar that three jars of coins were buried on his property and demanded $100,000 to perform a ritual to banish the guarding spirits. Caesar raised the money by withdrawing bank funds and borrowing from friends without his wife Rosmund’s knowledge. On the night of May 23, 1984, he was told to return to the site and drink a potion; that potion contained cyanide. By the next morning both the Obiaman and the money were gone.

Caesar’s death was the first of five similar cyanide poisonings on St. Croix between 1984 and 1988, a series investigators linked to a single suspect nicknamed the Obia Man. The suspect is described as a dark-skinned Black male with a heavy French West Indian accent; no identification or arrest has been announced and the cases remain unsolved.

Did anyone on St. Croix at the time know the Obiaman or have information about the large withdrawals linked to these victims?