Police treat death of Trident Prep headteacher in Kalumbila as sudden and unnatural

Police in North Western Province are investigating the death of the headteacher of Trident Prep Primary School in Kalumbila, who was found dead at his home on Monday morning. Derek Suttie, 59, a South African national, was found at his residence in Kalumbila Golf Estates at about 07:00 on Monday 26 October. A neighbour, who was also a workmate, found him and reported the matter to Kalumbila Police Station at 08:30 that morning. North Western Province Police Commanding Officer Brighton Siwale said officers found the body on a bed and found no signs of forced entry at the house. Police have found no suspicious evidence of homicide so far, and are recording the matter as a sudden and unnatural death while investigations continue. No cause of death has been established. ## The timeline Mr Suttie was last seen alive at about 15:00 on Saturday 24 October, which his garden worker confirmed to police. Officers believe from the condition of the body that he had been dead for more than 24 hours before he was found. A dog was shut inside the house and was distressed from lack of food and water. The body has been taken to the Wumi Mini Hospital mortuary, where a postmortem examination is to be carried out. Relatives are expected to travel from South Africa. ## What a sudden and unnatural death means In Zambian police practice, recording a death as sudden and unnatural is not a finding about what happened. It is the classification that opens an inquiry when someone dies outside hospital care and the cause is not immediately apparent. The postmortem is what usually settles the cause, and the police file stays open until it does. A classification of this kind rules nothing in and nothing out. ## Why it matters For the pupils and staff at Trident Prep, a school has lost the person who runs it, in the middle of a term, with no explanation yet to give the children or their parents. Kalumbila is a small district in North Western Province, and in a community that size the head