Better Hope man stabbed to death on birthday

Kaieteur News understands that police have since detained a young Better Hope resident for questioning, after he turned himself in with his father at around 15:00 hours yesterday.

Latchman Persaud, called ‘Boyo’, received seven stab wounds about his body, and collapsed in his foster father’s arms in front of his yard.

The young man had just left his home, after receiving a telephone call supposedly by one of the suspects in his murder. Family members believe that the killers are people from the neighbourhood who had previously worked with the same contracting firm.

They claimed that one of the suspects, who was a foreman of the firm, had been fired and Persaud had taken his place.

Since then, they claimed, the suspect had repeatedly threatened to get even. “He used to tell me son that he is a ‘cochore’ and he gone fix he,” said Kalranie Persaud, the dead man’s mother.

She told this newspaper that the same man came and called her son early Sunday morning, out in the pouring rain, but he was not at home.

The woman said that on Sunday night, her son, who had her cellular phone, received a call and left the house. That was at around 21:00 hours.

“I see he gat de phone to he ears and I ask he whey he going. He say he coming back just now,” Persaud told this newspaper. She said that, minutes later, she heard him desperately calling out to her.

She said that she immediately alerted her husband, since she was certain that something had happened to her son.

“By time me husband run out, he see ‘Boyo’ now falling pon de bridge, and he catch he in he hands. He body was full with blood,” Persaud explained. The badly injured man was taken into his yard while relatives summoned a taxi.

“I ask he, ‘Boyo’ wha happen to you?’ But de blood just keep pouring out he nose and mouth. He couldn’t say anything,” Kalranie Persaud stated.

 

He was subsequently rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Latchman Persaud received two stab wounds to his neck, two in the region of his heart, two to his lower abdomen, and one more in another part of his body.

He also appeared to have been struck at the back of his head, since it was badly swollen. Relatives believe that Persaud was attacked by more than one person.

Except for his mother’s cellular phone, on which he had received the fateful call, the killers did not take anything from Persaud, leaving behind his money and a Raz’r phone in his pocket.

“Dem ain’t rob he. Dey didn’t give he no chance. Dey just call he out and juk he up,” the woman said, calling the name of the person whom she suspected killed her son.

Several calls were made to the missing cellular phone, and after it rang out the first time, someone had subsequently turned it off.

Kaieteur News understands that the young man, who was the father of a year-old boy, had grown fatherless, too, after his father went away, leaving his mother while he was still young.

“Only yesterday morning he ask me whey I going, and I tell he that I goin to work. He tell me ‘Lady, you like you nah gone stop work’?” the woman cried. “He does play birthday music fuh everybody, but yesterday (Sunday) he nah play fuh heself,” she added.

Police recovered a knife that the suspects had used to kill Persaud, a few corners away from his home.
“De knife bend up, like dey really juk he up bad,” said another relative. Police visited the home of the suspect, who had disappeared.

The dead man’s 17-year-old wife, Amanda Sookdeo, was too distraught to speak to the media. However, she lamented that she will miss her husband, who she said was the sole provider for her and her son.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008