"Bad words" triggered Buxton mass murder - widow tells mother By Robert Bazil Guyana Chronicle July 9, 1999 `BAD words' about his wife apparently were the last straw for Raul Herod who flew in a rage Tuesday night, shooting dead six family members, his widow told her mother. Herod, 36, sent his wife Denise away from the Buxton, East Coast Demerara house they shared with his mother and other family members before he began shooting them at point-blank range with a .32 Taurus pistol. He then set fire to the two-flat wooden house and apparently shot himself as the flames swept through the building. In the end, eight were dead, including the killer. The blazing row that erupted in gun fire and flames just before midnight Tuesday started from the `bad words' (uncomplimentary remarks) his mother used about his wife, Herod's mother-in-law told the Chronicle yesterday. She said that after her daughter was released from Police custody Wednesday, she told her that the `duck drake' remark sent Herod into a rage during a heated argument with his mother. She said Denise related that her husband shouted out to neighbours to go and talk to his mother after she called his wife a `duck drake', but nobody went. "They were living a miserable life...they (the relatives) used to call her all kinds of names, most of which I can't even tell you," the mother told the Chronicle. Dead are Herod's grandmother, Angela Herod, 97; his mother, Shirley Cole, 56; aunt, Patricia Harris, 58; niece, Jonnelle Herod, 10; nephew, Orwin Herod, 15; son, Rondell Herod, 11; and daughter Nandy Herod, 14. His grandmother is believed to have perished in the fire after she was trapped upstairs, but reports said she was not shot. His son, Jermaine Herod was shot in the jaw but escaped and is a patient at the Georgetown Hospital. The mother-in-law related that her daughter told her that Monday night, she and Herod were watching television in their apartment downstairs when Herod's mother turned off the electricity power from upstairs. Consequently, Herod went upstairs to tell his mother that they were looking at television and as he pushed the door, a lamp which was behind it fell to the floor, breaking its glass bottom. After a quarrel erupted, Herod reportedly promised to buy a replacement glass bottom the next day. But Denise did not get the glass piece to buy in the village because the shops were selling only whole lamps. The next day, Denise did not get a chance to go to Georgetown to buy back the lamp, her mother explained. She said Denise told her that at about midnight Tuesday, Herod's mother began to stamp on the floor above them while they were asleep, complaining that she had to endure an electricity blackout because she was without her lamp which Herod had broken. The mother said her daughter told her that the electricity had already come back on when Herod's mother was complaining about being in blackout because he had broken the lamp. Then Herod told his wife: "Come and let us go to Georgetown (to stay) by your mother or your aunt." The two of them went to the main road of the village to try to catch a bus for Georgetown but transportation was difficult and they were not successful. As they were returning to the house, he heard his mother quarrelling and calling his wife a `duck drake' Denise told her mother. At this point, he told his wife to go alone and as he attempted to run upstairs, she tried to hold him back but he wriggled out and advised her to take care of herself and her daughter. Herod ran upstairs and his wife said she heard gun shots ringing out. She ran to the house of a villager and asked the family to open the door and let her in, but was told they had a young baby and could not open the door. "Denise said that the entire house then suddenly went up in flames...at first she thought it was the toilet or the bathroom, located in the yard on fire," her mother recalled. Denise later met a Policeman on the road who she knew from the village and told him what had happened and he took her to the Vigilance Police Station. The mother said she sent a message to her Wednesday telling her about the incident, and "not to worry, I am alright". The couple used to work together at the Securicor (Guyana) Inc. security firm, but after they got married in December last year one had to resign, in keeping with company regulations. The mother told the Chronicle her daughter and son-in-law used to live happily but she did not know what went wrong. However, she said that last year Denise got sick and was in hospital for a day and relatives in the house claimed that Raul's grandmother apparently "took it on" and could not sleep properly at night. "After that she (Denise) would complain that the grandmother would `buse' her, together with Herod's mother and sister...but her husband never used to talk about doing anything like that," she recalled. Explaining that her daughter, 27, and Herod used to live in an apartment downstairs, the mother said that the couple got electricity through a cable from upstairs, and shared the bill. The gun was owned by Securicor and Herod, an operations supervisor with the firm, was authorised to keep it in his possession 24 hours a day, official sources told the Chronicle. He was apparently planning the killing days before because one neighbour overheard him saying that "a few more days from now and this would be over". Herod also threatened neighbours during the Tuesday night attack, firing two bullets behind one of them, Dion Braithwaite. A neighbour, Onica McAlmont, told the Chronicle that on Monday night, Herod's sister was in the yard cooking on a `coal pot' for a wake when he turned off an electric light outside, resulting in an argument between the two. His mother told him that as his sister was outside he had no right to take off the light and he got angry, causing another argument. McAlmont said that during the quarrel Tuesday night, Herod shouted to neighbours: "People! People! You all come out...you all come out...come and talk to this lady, nuh...come and talk to this lady nuh!...she forcing me to do things wha I ein't want." But the woman said none of the neighbours went out of their houses, adding that Herod had told his wife to pack their clothes and they went downstairs. The two were talking under the house when Herod left and ran upstairs and she ran behind him and held him, but he pushed her away. "He ran into bedroom and fire five bullets at his mother...he didn't shoot his grandmother...his mother get shoot," she recalled. McAlmont told the Chronicle that when Herod came out of the bedroom he saw his nephew Orwin in the kitchen and he shot him twice. Orwin went into the room and came out and walked to the step and started to cry, but collapsed and later died. "The husband now shoot he auntie and then walk and come down the step. His daughter Nandy was leaning over Orwin who had fallen". "...He seh, `Nandy!' and she seh, `Yes daddy', and he fired three bullets, one to her and one each of his two sons," she said. McAlmont said that she and other neighbours left the scene and ran over the road and Herod came out and said: "You'll running? wha you'll s.... running for? I gon catch you'll." She recalled that while she and others were in their hiding places they got word that the house was on fire. McAlmont said Herod had told his wife to go away "Go and have a nice time" and fired two shots behind Dion Braithwaite, a neighbour. Another neighbour, Handel Neptune said: "I know him for a number of years. We actually went to school together and I don't know him to be a person like this." Stating that he learnt that Herod had family relationship problems, Neptune said that Tuesday he overheard him talking to his daughter saying: "A few more days from now and this would be over." "I didn't know that it was an intention like that he had...but if I had known that it would have been something like this, I would have informed others, or the family," he said. Another neighbour, Luren Nelson, said she Tuesday night heard him saying "Put on the light, put on the light" and the mother replying and they argued and argued. The woman explained that Herod then came out on to the street and said: "Neighbours, neighbours, come out and talk to meh mother or you'll gon sorry". But nobody went out, so he told his wife to go and enjoy life and then he started shooting, she recalled. Nelson said a villager saw Orwin lying on the step and thinking he may still be alive, went and moved him, but when he picked him up, he was dead. The man put the boy in a corner of the yard under a genip tree. Braithwaithe said that about midnight he heard Herod and his mother quarrelling and he was threatening to kill everybody, but he did not take it serious. "I was standing looking over at him and he was pissed off or something," he said. The man reported that Herod told his wife to pack up her clothes and leave, and he went upstairs, kicked open the door and pulled a gun from his waist and fired five shots into the bedroom. "After a nephew said `Uncle Raul', he turned around and shoot Orwin and he fell down...then I said to other people, `Let us go and see if we could help him; his gun does not have any more bullets'...but by the time I said that, he walked to his apartment and fired two shots...and I jumped over the fence and ran away," Braithwaithe said. He said that by the time he went back he saw the house was on fire and heard that everybody inside was dead, except one boy. A © page from: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples