Taxi driver and wife in murder, suicide drama 


A taxi driver and his wife of 18 years died within hours of each other following a murder/suicide which shook the community of Vryheid, West Canje, Berbice, late Friday.


Dead is Aubrey Paddy, 45, and Michelle, 34, a supernumerary constable attached to Magistrate Geeta Chandan.

Reports reveal that the killings, witnessed by two of their three children, stemmed from long periods of physical abuse.

According to Michon Guillaume, 18, her step-father was expected to work the night shift at the 'Triple S' Taxi Service at Philadelphia Street in New Amsterdam, which is about three hundred meters from their home.


However, he returned home between 9 and 10 pm, whilst she was watching her favourite television programme 'Top Ten'.

According to the teenager, on opening the door, Paddy told her to place a bowl to catch the water from the leaking roof as it was raining.

In addition, he ordered her to place a chair behind the front door. Having done so, the eldest child resumed viewing the programme. Her father went into the bedroom where her mother was and then she heard her mother saying, "Don't do this to me'.

Her mother ran from the room, naked, and ran outside, where she slipped in the mud, her husband pursuing her with a knife.

He stabbed her several times, Guillaume said, as her 10-year-old brother Seon attempted to take the knife away from his father.

She remembered screaming, as her mother repeated weakly, "Don't kill me."

Michelle Paddy was pronounced dead on arrival at the New Amsterdam Hospital.

Guillaume spent the night at a neighbour's house, and on returning home yesterday morning, found a note written by her father on the dining table, saying that if he could not have her mother, then nobody else would.

Then she heard that the Police had found the body of her father in a yard at Rose Hall Corentyne, some 20 miles from the murder scene, and it is believed that he had committed suicide.

In addition to Guillaume, the couple leaves behind three other children Aubrey, 13, Seon, 10 and Allison, 7.

Sunday, August 12, 2007