March 17, 2009 — When results in finding his brother's killer were hard to come by, FBI agent Wilfred Baptiste turned to "America's Most Wanted."
Wilfred Baptiste retired recently from the bureau, but with his brother's killer still on the run and expected to be on the mainland, he is driven to get justice.
Corrections officer Richard Baptiste, 48, was gunned down for $1,500 in 2003 while working at his part-time security guard job at Caribbean Cinemas. He was assisting a manager in making a bank deposit when he was shot in the back, allegedly by Albion Dee Frett of Tortola, according to Keith Greenberg, one of the show's producers. The victim was a father of eight children.
Richard's brother, Wilfred, served on the FBI's Fugitive Squad in New York, where he arrested many criminals as a result of tips given to "America's Most Wanted." His call to the show brought the filming of the episode to the Virgin Islands.
Baptiste lauded the show's track record for arrests and said that now that the episode has been filmed, the show could air the portion again and again until the killer is caught.
"I retired last year," Baptiste said. "I contacted John Walsh's people and started the ball rolling. They called me just 36 hours later."
That was November 2007, four years after the murder.
Program host John Walsh was filming the show's episode Tuesday at Hull Bay, and he also spent time with former agent Baptiste and his family.
Walsh also hopes the episode will bring forward information leading to Frett's arrest.
"Somebody knows where this guy is," he said.
Walsh has spent time on small islands like those in the territory and understands well how everybody knows everybody, a culture which sometimes can make people afraid to come forward when police seek information.
"People should not live in fear," he said.
Walsh is also no stranger to the kinds of crimes that he airs on his show. His son, Adam, was abducted and killed in the summer of 1981.
"'America's Most Wanted' is all about coming forward and doing the right thing," Walsh said. "We can guarantee anonymity."
The show provides people with the ability to call in their tips or provide information via its website.
Walsh urged people to do the right thing for their own protection, as their child or mother or wife or sister could be killed in the next shooting.
"One of the ways to reduce violence and make a community safer is to share any knowledge [of criminal activity] with police," Walsh said.
So far, tips to the show have led to the capture of 1,059 dangerous criminals.
The 978th episode of the show will air March 28 on the Fox Network, the day after what would have been Richard Baptiste's 54th birthday.
Family members stayed all day to watch the filming of the episode, including the victim's father; two of his children, Jermaine and twin sister Tramaine; and Richard's sister, Vivian Henry.
"My heart is filled that he [John Walsh] came," Henry said. "I want justice — that is what all of us want."
The show will also air the story of the triple homicide in June 2006 at the Banana Split Bar, where Emmanuel Polanco Vanderhorst allegedly gunned down three men who earlier in the evening came to the aid of a woman the suspect was beating savagely.
For more information about the show, visit amw.com.
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