Dennie Quill, Contributor

If I do not hear the name, Bob Woolmer, again, I would be very happy indeed. No disrespect meant to the former Pakistani cricket coach, but this murder investigation has only served to show the world how inept our police force has become.

And even with expensive imported English labour, the Jamaican police remain impotent when it comes to solving crime. There are scores of unsolved murders, and the ones that are 'cleared up' usually come about at the end of the barrel of a gun, when a suspect has been shot to death.

And since the police are supposedly tied up trying to solve hundreds of murders, one can assume that less attention is being paid to other types of criminal activity.

Now that Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has announced that the police would be focused on pulling in illegal firearms (why were they not doing this all along floors me), we can kiss goodbye to any attempt to solve so-called "soft" crimes. These days the police don't even bother to investigate burglary if there is no physical harm done.

Crime thriller

Back to Mr. Woolmer. As news of his death spread on March 18, hours after his side's shock defeat by Ireland, everyone knew this was no ordinary event. It had all the makings of a crime thriller. Mark Shields, the leading man in this drama, was ready for the cameras (Surely, there is a Hollywood role in his future).

As details started to emerge about the crime scene - he was found naked in his hotel room with only a towel about him, traces of vomit, blood and faeces - the Sherlock Holmes in all of us began to consider different scenarios.

Not to be forgotten is the fact that gambling on cricket in India and Pakistan is said to be more lucrative than drug dealing and robbery with strong links to organised crime and terrorism.

This is what PaulCondon, head of the ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit told the British House of Lords.

So did the match-fixing Mafia or Al Qaeda connections have anything to do with Woolmer's death?

Reports that he chased a cricket match fixer with Al Qaeda connections from his room hours before his death have been circulating in the United Kingdom press, which appears to have better particulars about these investigations than our local media. We were told that the death was suspicious and later police said Woolmer's death was due to manual strangulation.

There were more questions than answers and speculation was rife.

Then a new clue emerged - could it be aconite poison? Toxicologists say this ancient flower's deadly paralysis-spreading toxin could be the perfect foil to a murder. If it were aconite poison, who administered it? Was it done inadvertently or intentionally? Still more questions and no answers.

So, with more than 30 local police officers and overseas assistance from Scotland Yard, Interpol and Pakistan, we have examined CCTV footage, viewed toxicology reports, interviewed more than 100 witnesses, and so on.

In one of his many press appearances, Mr. Shields reported that he had results of CCTV footage - "I now have some of the results which are excellent and give a clearer picture of what took place." Is Mr. Shields really serious or is he after a sound bite? What picture is he getting and why hasn't he shared it with us?

Whatever happens, the JCF is not letting go of the strangulation theory. This seems like a classic case of "that's my story and I am sticking to it".

Only recently, we heard from one of the Pakistani investigators that Mr. Woolmer may have died of natural causes and that there was nothing conclusive! This is after Mr. Shields reported "significant developments" in the case.

After nearly two months, and one imagines significant expenditure, it does not appear that we are any closer to solving the case of Bob Woolmer's death.

Oh, Mr. Shields went South Africa as part ofthe investigations, and Woolmer has been cremated there.

We need to solve this murder so we don't run the risk of becoming the laughing stock of the world.