Editor’s Note: This report is part of a Source series on transparency in the Virgin Islands. Each story highlights both the issues at hand and the obstacles the Source has encountered in obtaining timely and complete public information, including questions over what is public under Virgin Islands law. By documenting these challenges, the series underscores why access to accurate records, and our public officials, matters — for accountability, for community trust, and for understanding how decisions affect daily life in the territory.
Law enforcement leaders regularly appeal to the public for information during periods of heightened criminal activity and spikes in homicide, but it’s important to know what safeguards — if any — are in place for Virgin Islanders who come forward.
In August alone, the V.I. Justice Department moved to dismiss dozens of felony cases — often because witnesses stopped cooperating with authorities or couldn’t be found. After prosecutors in May recommended dropping charges against two men accused of killing Stacie Schjang and Arnold Jarvis in 2022, V.I. Attorney General Gordon Rhea issued a statement explaining that the government’s case relied on a single witness who later recanted.
“In a criminal case, the prosecution must prove the defendant’s guilt ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ It is not enough to show that a defendant might, could, or even probably, have committed a crime,” Rhea stated. A V.I. Superior Court judge dismissed the cases without prejudice, allowing prosecutors to bring charges again if they receive new information.
According to court documents, Jarvis identified Schjang’s alleged killers and said he knew them from an ongoing feud between residents of the David Hamilton Jackson and John F. Kennedy housing communities. He was killed eight days later, and attorneys for the defendants argued that Jarvis’s testimony couldn’t be used in court because the Sixth Amendment guarantees all criminal defendants the right to face their accuser.
“The Defendant’s actions in killing Mr. Jarvis has made him unavailable to testify in these cases,” Assistant Attorney General Kippy Roberson fired back in a March court filing.
In the same month, Justice dropped charges against accused contract killer Quasheem Christian because their key witness was shot and killed.
The dismissals raised questions about the territory’s witness protection program, and the Source reached out to the Justice Department in May. According to the Virgin Islands Code, the department is supposed to house a Witness Protection Board “that consists of the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands, the Commissioner of Police, and the Administrator of the Victim/Witness Advocate Program.”
The board is also empowered to fund “any action the Board determines to be necessary to protect the individual from bodily injury or to assure the individual’s health, safety, and welfare for as long as, in the judgment of the Board, the danger exists.” In emergency situations, an attorney general can spend up to $3,000 to assist a witness or potential witness.
In June, the Source again requested a schedule of the board’s meetings under the territory’s public records laws as well as copies of annual reports the board is required to submit to the Legislature detailing the type of assistance provided. According to the V.I. Code, “Every citizen of this Territory shall have the right to examine all public records and to copy such records, and the news media may publish such records, unless some other provision of the Code expressly limits such right or requires such records to be kept secret or confidential.”
Most of the Witness Protection Board’s records are confidential, but the V.I. Code explicitly states that the “documents submitted to the Legislature … and the rules and regulations of the Board shall be considered public records subject to public disclosure.”
To date, the Source has not received the requested information. A Justice Department spokesperson told the Source on Aug. 26 that she was “waiting for an update” and that the department otherwise had no comment.
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