Police ‘cold case files’ overflow with unsolved murders
By Michael Jordan
Kaieteur News
July 19, 2004
They solved the sensational murder of informant George Bacchus within a week, and got a confession out of the Hampshire ‘body in the pit’ murder suspect within two days.
But detectives from the Guyana Police Force have a huge pile of other unsolved murders on their hands.
Forget the unsolved cases of yesteryear, like the Jessie Ann Forde and Monica Reece murders, and the execution-style killing of cambio dealer Herman Sanichar.
For this year alone, there have been over 64 murders, many of which still remain to be solved.
For instance, on January 21, Raymond Singh, an OMAI employee, was standing outside his yard in Costello Housing Scheme, when a burglar who was fleeing after committing a robbery in the area shot him dead.
Although police were given a description of the man who shot Singh, no one was ever arrested for the crime.
On February 29, the decomposing bodies of Fazie Insanally, 57, and her 12-year-old daughter, Allyah, were found in their home at Public Road, Kitty. Autopsies indicated that Mrs. Insanally had been strangled, while the one done on her daughter was inconclusive.
A male relative was grilled by the police, but he was eventually released and no one else was held.
On February 14, Valentine’s Night, Trevor Fung, a top student from St. Stanislaus College, was walking through Bel Air with a female friend, when two men on a scooter attacked and stabbed him to death.
Police were given descriptions of the assailants, but again, no one was arrested and police were left with another ‘cold case’ in their already bulging files.
On the night of February 23, the body of Bronson Rutherford was found in a trench in the vicinity of Church Street. Police received information that he was beaten by a group of people whom he had picked up.
Again several persons were questioned, but no charges were laid.
In March, 45-year-old Courtney Dodson, called ‘Limpy’, of Canal Number One, Polder, West Bank Demerara, was standing in a yard in James Street, Albouystown, when a man wearing a hooded coat blasted him with a shotgun at close range.
On April 14, gunmen entered the home of Majeed Ghanie, a 38-year-old Corriverton cane cutter, and shot him in the head. They left without stealing anything from the home.
In late March, 27-year-old Buxtonian Joslyn Jones, who some police sources say was linked to a rape and robbery spree on the East Coast of Demerara, disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
He has not been seen since and his relatives are now convinced that he is dead.
On April 2, two heavily-armed gunmen kidnapped Iranian national Mohamed Ibrahimi shortly after he had left the Islamic College in United Nations Place.
His body, with two bullet holes in the head, was eventually found in a shallow grave off the Soesdyke/Linden Highway. No one has ever been held.
On May 4, Malika Archer, the sister of slain Buxtonain Mervin Archer, called Skittle, was shot dead by gunmen who invaded her home at Buxton. Archer was an eyewitness to the murder of a Buxton pensioner.
On May 22, Ray Anthony Major, a 21-year-old policeman attached to the Band Corps, disappeared in the vicinity of the Stabroek area where he was moonlighting as a taxi driver.
Four days later, residents of Eccles Access Road discovered Major’s body floating in a canal. He had been stabbed to death.
The policeman’s bloodstained vehicle was found in the Eccles Cemetery. Although police arrested two men who were reportedly nabbed with spare parts from the murdered cop’s car, they were released and no one has been charged.
In June, three men were walking through Buxton when they were ambushed by gunmen.
The headless torso of one of the victims, later identified as Sherwyn, called ‘Regular’ was reportedly killed and buried.
In late June, police received word that an 11-year-old girl, Norden Wilkinson, of Pattensen, East Coast Demerara, had disappeared last September, after she was severely beaten by her father.
Detectives are convinced that the child has been murdered and buried near her home.
However, they have failed to find her body and the suspect continues to elude them.
Another case that is still unsolved is the murder of taxi driver Clive Welch, who was riddled with bullets in the vicinity of Middle Street, Mc Doom on July 11.
Police have a description of a male passenger who Welch picked up about an hour before he was slain. However, the suspect is still at large.
One case that police would dearly like to solve is the murder of the unidentified child, whose body washed up at the Number 63 foreshore, Corentyne a few days ago.
The corpse of the girl, who is estimated to be about five years old, bore marks of violence, and her arms had been severed at the elbows.
Up to yesterday, her identity remained unknown.