Police once responded to a report that death squad member, Axel Williams led a gang of armed men into a city suburb, in search of a wanted man.
However, police have been unable to confirm the report that a patrol showed up to investigate a report that Williams and three others were on a late night manhunt.
The trio were heavily armed and with their guns drawn looked like policemen to casual observers, although not in uniform, says a woman who reported the men. She spoke with the Stabroek News on the condition of anonymity.
The woman remembers that the men were all fitted out in casual wear but for one, who was clad in a bulletproof vest.
Nevertheless, their presence was enough to rouse the attention of some of the more curious people in the area, who tracked the men until they stopped at a house.
"Luckily no one was at home at the time... no one was at home or who knows what would have happened?" she recalled.
Her brother was one of the persons living at the house but he was not home at the time and after they realised this the men retreated to a car that was parked nearby and drove away, leaving many people with the impression that they were policemen."
Half of an hour elapsed before they returned and this time the witness went out to see them.
"What took me by surprise was that I saw Axel... I knew him before as a taxi driver. They all had guns. He had the biggest gun," she noted.
The weapon she describes is not the .32 pistol, which was the firearm Williams was licensed to carry, before he was granted an upgraded licence later that year.
"Good night. Is there a problem?" she recalls asking the men, directing her question to Williams. But he ignored her and they continued to survey the empty house.
The brief encounter ended when Williams led the other men back to their car and they left for a second time.
The woman grew afraid and still under the impression that the group were policemen she decided to find out why the police were looking for her brother.
She said she made a call to police headquarters at Eve Leary where an officer told her Williams was not a member of the police force.
"The officer said there is nobody in the police force with that name... He said they have a police patrol and they will send it to see what is going on..."
The patrol visited soon after and a policeman pulled the witness aside.
"The policemen said if you know where your brother at, you need to go for him and don't let him come back... if he [Williams] gets your brother he will be a dead man and nothing will come of it..." the woman recalled.
She managed to contact her brother and arrangements were made for him to stay at a safe place for the rest of the night.
The next day he returned to the area and so did Williams, who came alone. Williams apologised to him, claiming that he did not know it was his home. Later that day he visited the witness, again apologising for the night before.
"He said he went there because he heard that fugitive Mark Phillips got shot and somebody in the area was looking after him," said the woman, who did admit that Phillips, then wanted for several murders and a series of robberies, had been visiting the area quite frequently. Phillips was wanted for crimes that included the murders of several policemen, kidnapping and armed robberies.
He is said to have been the gunman behind a bloodbath in Albouystown, where three men were killed and another lost his arm.
He eluded authorities until May 15, 2003 when he and another man were killed at Buxton by an army patrol.
The witness is unwilling to go to the police with her information.
She explained that she has no guarantee of any confidentiality and she was generally skeptical when asked about discussing the incident. Her brother did not want to talk about that night.
Williams has been shrouded in controversy since he shot and killed Rasville food vendor Rodwell Ogle over $20.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, based on investigations, ordered that he be charged for murder.
But that advisory was mysteriously amended later the same day and a coroners' inquest was ordered instead. In July 2003, the inquest had not yet started and Williams was granted a gun licence upgrade by the Commissioner of Police, on the approval of the Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj.
He was killed in December in a well-organised hit, after which allegations first surfaced about his involvement in a death squad formed to wipe out criminals.