10 minute read
The Real Murder on Mustique: Richard Klepfer
The Real Murder on Mustique
by Rick Klepfer
Anne Glenconner recently published a novel titled “Murder on Mustique,” in which a fictitious socialite is murdered on the tiny Caribbean island of Mustique. While the murder in Glenconner’s book is a made-up tale, the island is an actual place and is indeed occupied by rich and/or famous folks. A brutal murder did take place there in the late 1990s but it has never been solved. Having lived on Mustique at that time, I had a front-row seat to those curious events.
Mustique prides itself on the creation of an exclusive closed society where people with a lot of money can go with little chance of being bothered by paparazzi or having to maintain their publicfacing image. Many of these people have been regular features in the magazines that you might page through while waiting in grocery store checkout lines, but there are many more denizens of Mustique that are the behind-the-scenes type of rich people ~ the “quietly wealthy.” Luminaries such as Mick Jagger, Princess Margaret and David Bowie have all maintained villas on the island and enjoyed relative anonymity there. Tommy Hilfiger has built a massive residence there, and other people, less known to Americans, such as David Linley, Lord Litchfield and my friend the late Sir Rodney Touche, have been regular inhabitants of the place.
It’s not particularly easy to get to Mustique. While a few yachtsmen show up there each season to spend a few days in the rolling and unprotected anchorage at Britannia Bay, most visitors come by air. Many
of the wealthy come to the island in their own private planes, but everybody else must rely on Mustique Air, which operates small, twin-engine planes throughout the Lesser Antilles and Barbados. It is at the Mustique airport where visitors are subjected to rigorous scrutiny as they come through the customs office, which is housed in the bamboo edifice that serves as the airport terminal. The runway itself is a thrill ride of an introduction to the island ~ it is short and has a steeply inclined surface at one end and a mountain at the other. I once had the unsettling experience of bushwhacking through the tan-
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gles of tropical undergrowth at the end of the runway to discover the wrecks of numerous planes hidden in the trees there.
At the customs desk, the incoming visitor is asked at what house they are staying. If they haven’t rented one of the extremely expensive villas, been invited as the guest of a villa owner or booked into one of the two guest facilities, they will need to secure reservations on the last flight out on that same day. To rent a villa on Mustique, it would be possible to spend over 50,000 US dollars for a week ~ plus tips. Even the budget-priced Cotton House costs around $1,000 a night. It would be difficult to even make it to the island by air as a casual visitor because the Mustique Air boarding gate at Barbados does such a thorough job of weeding out any undesirables.
It was at the airport where my wife and I first met Suzie Mostberger. She stepped off the plane and was met by one of the local young men, the sort of fellows for
whom she seemed to have a predilection. She introduced herself to us, looked at my wife and pointed to her boyfriend. “Zees is my man,” she sternly told her, “and you don’t touch him.” My wife, ever quick with a retort, told Suzie, “and zees is my man, and you don’t touch him,” while pointing in my direction. This immediately broke the ice, and thus we became acquainted with Suzie, a woman in her mid-fi fties whose skin clearly demonstrated her love of sunbathing and who spoke with a thick French accent. She was heiress to a fortune made in the dental equipment industry in France.
Suzie came to Mustique every winter to escape the dismal climate of Europe in winter and to spend some quiet time at a sprawling villa, Fort Shandy, that sat on a high bluff overlooking the incredible azure waters of the southern Caribbean Sea. We would see her around the island roads or at the beach, and oftentimes we would chat with her at the weekly Wednesday night beach bashes that were sponsored by the Cotton House, the Mustique Company-owned hotel.
We were guests at a birthday celebration for one of the wealthiest women in the world one evening. The house, which was named Rosa Dei Venti, was situated on a
Fort Shandy
dramatic site, high on a cliff with expansive views of the islands north of Mustique. Night quickly came, as it does at locations near the equator, and we could see the lights of Bequia, St. Vincent and, in the distance, Martinique. We were greeted at the entry by a gauntlet of liveried butlers and maids, each holding out a colorful mixed drink by balancing it on their upturned fist ~ a Mustique tradition.
The party itself was packed with people from all over the world ~ the most wealthy and notable from the highest social circles. We spoke briefly with Suzie before indulging in the quirky party games that are popular in England and partaking of the drinks that flowed
freely throughout the evening. It was early the following morning when we made our way back to our home and collapsed into our bed for a sleep that we hoped would forestall the inevitable morning hangover. Later, as we were eating our breakfast, our maid informed us that there had been a murder on the island during the night. This news shocked us into awareness. Somewhat later, one of our friends came up to tell us that there had indeed been a murder, and that the victim was none other than Suzie Mostberger. Mustique is a tiny island, not much more than three miles long and barely a half-mile wide ~ news travels quickly. We couldn’t help
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but think back to the previous night to see if we remembered anything that would have seemed odd. We could think of nothing. We drove down the dirt road that ran by her house and, indeed, the road and the grounds of Fort Shandy were clogged with policemen and police vehicles. We were waved on, with the implication that we shouldn’t
Suzie Mostberger, a fi xture on Mustique, was wealthier and friendlier than most, an energetic socialite. She was found in her mansion with a slit throat and several stab wounds, clutching a penknife that she had used to try to ward off her attacker. linger and should find another way to get where we were going in the immediate future.
Since Suzie was French, the gendarmes from Martinique soon arrived from their island. We were surprised a few days later when these French policemen showed up at our door. They were working from a guest list from the party ~ the last place that Suzie had been seen alive. We were questioned and, as a result, had the unnerving thought that we might not be able to prove our innocence. To further bolster these fears, we were shocked to be asked to provide our DNA. This was a dilemma ~ if we refused, wouldn’t it indicate guilt? And if we agreed, what was our assurance that they wouldn’t concoct a case against us wrongly? In our haste to put this behind us, we agreed to let the gendarmes swab out our mouths.
The samples we provided were slipped into a plastic envelope, and the men bowed slightly and left us. As the days progressed, we learned
Rich and famous face DNA tests in hunt for killer.
that Suzie had returned home from the party at a late hour that night and that someone had broken into her home a short time thereafter. Perhaps they were waiting for her when she got home. Apparently, Suzie did not give up easily. She had a small collection of knives in a drawer, and she used one of these, a small penknife, to valiantly fight back. Her efforts were to no avail, and she succumbed to the attack. Reports were that the place was a bloody mess at the end of it.
Things slowly returned to near normal on the island. Being such a small place however, the crime made many residents feel vulnerable for the first time. Who had done this heinous deed? Was the perpetrator still on the island? What was the motive for the attack? None of the answers to these questions was forthcoming. We resumed our daily lives, but without the carefree attitude that we enjoyed prior to the incident. We wondered if we would be called in for questioning, or if we might be arrested on suspicion of murder.
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Murder on Mustique nothing was missing from the house. Perhaps it was perpetrated
The gendarmes did return to by someone she had offended. Or our house one morning. They were was it a jealous romantic interest shown in by the cook and led to that felt jilted? We even heard a where we were breakfasting by theory that she had lent the govthe swimming pool. Our attention ernment a lot of money and they was immediately riveted on these had killed her because they didn’t smartly uniformed men as they want to pay her back. There were stood before us ~ fearing the pos- reports that the millions of dollars sibility of an unhappy experience. she had in a Swiss bank account The lead officer pulled an envelope had disappeared directly after her out of his jacket pocket and held it death ~ how was that possible? A up before us. “Zees,” he said, “are weapon was never found, there your DNA samples. We no longer were no fingerprints left, and there have use for zem, and you are not was no evidence of a sexual attack. suspects in ze incident.” Then, to It was supposed that the murderer our surprise, he threw the samples had come by boat in the night and onto the stone patio and lit a match left the same way after he had comto them. We watched as the pa- mitted his crime. Whatever it was, pers burned down to a few crispy, no one was ever charged, and the charred remnants, whereupon the island of Mustique did its best to maid came to sweep them up. The sweep the matter out of sight in an men apologized for the intrusion attempt to restore the island’s imbut would not divulge any infor- age as a bit of paradise that is not mation whatsoever. They departed subject to the unsavory realities our house, as well as the island, of the rest of the world. The Mostnever to return. berger family has never received
There were many theories about any closure to what happened to the motive for Suzie’s murder. It Suzie, and I suspect they never didn’t seem to be a robbery, for will.
Rick Klepfer is an avid sailor, oarsman and traveler and has written about his sailing adventures, including such places as the Norwegian Arctic, the Southern Caribbean, the South China Sea and the Coast of Maine. He now resides in Cambridge.
