Bahamas Murder Mystery: Four Charred Bodies Discovered on Remote Island

Police in the Bahamas are trying to establish the identities of four people whose badly burnt bodies were found on a remote, uninhabited islet.

The bodies were retrieved from the barren Anguilla Cay, north of Cuba, by the Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF).

RBDF initially said that tyres were used to set alight the corpses of three men and one woman, who investigators suspected may have been Haitian migrants. Foul play is suspected.

However police on the tropical paradise later backtracked, saying race, age, sex of the bodies was still to be determined and so was the cause of death.

"At this point we only have minimal information," Assistant Commissioner of Police Anthony Ferguson told the local Tribune newspaper. "Even though the bodies were burned, we still have not determined the cause of death.

"We believe that the bodies were there from about six to eight weeks," he said.

Authorities said that no sign of a vessel or any evidence suggesting how the four victims had arrived on the cay was immediately found.

"No one lived on the cay as far as we know, so we are also trying to determine how the bodies got there in the first place," Ferguson said.

Ferguson said authorities were first alerted of the presence of some bodies or bones by fishermen sailing in the area, three weeks ago.

A helicopter team was sent to check the isle more than 300km south west of New Providence, the main island of the country made up of more than 700 islands, islets and cays off Florida's eastern coast, but failed to spot the remains.

"Obviously the situation required more time and searching and so we went back with the Defence Force and discovered the bodies," Ferguson said.

The corpses have been transferred for forensic analysis to the Bahamas capital of Nassau.