Bob Woolmer. Photo / Reuters
Jamaican police investigating Bob Woolmer's murder believe his last room-service dinner may have been laced with drugs to subdue him.
"He was 6ft 1in [185cm] and a big man, and unless he was drugged or impaired it would perhaps have been difficult to restrain him," said Deputy Commissioner
Mark Shields.
"We are looking at whether his food was drugged.
"The meal was thrown away after he put the tray outside his room, but we are conducting toxicology and tissue tests."
Detectives are also investigating reports that the Pakistan coach argued with members of his squad hours before he died.
One of Woolmer's closest friends, former South African cricket star Clive Rice, said he had "absolutely no doubt" Woolmer had been murdered on the instructions of a match-fixing syndicate.
Mr Rice said Woolmer knew exactly who had been involved in some of cricket's biggest scandals.
Mr Shields, who is leading the homicide inquiry, also indicated that closed-circuit television tapes from the Pegasus Hotel might provide a breakthrough.
"I am very optimistic that if the quality is as good as I hope, that will help us significantly with the investigation as to who exactly went on the 12th floor on that Saturday evening and Sunday morning," he said.
But like everything else in the bizarre case, translating the video into watchable form has not been straightforward.
Said Mr Shields: "The CCTV was in a particular format and we have to preserve the original cassettes and I had to have them converted into a digital format so we can begin the process of reviewing them methodically.
"That does not happen in five minutes. We have got it now, and my officers are starting to go through it."
Cameras were at either end of the corridor on the floor and near the lifts.
Although the tapes from them might not show who entered and left Woolmer's room, they should display in sufficient detail the faces of all those in the corridor.
