The second-year Com-munications student, who was stabbed in the neck and abdomen at the University of Guyana on Friday night, succumbed to his injuries shortly after midnight yesterday while undergoing emergency surgery.
Meanwhile the police are on the hunt for Dennis Edghill’s killer who fled the scene in his car shortly after the stabbing. Stabroek News understands that the name of the suspect and his car number have been handed over to law enforcement authorities.
Edghill, 23, of Haslington, East Coast Demerara, was rushed to the Georgetown Hospital around 8 pm with stab wounds. He was in a conscious state.
Minutes later, he lost consciousness and was subsequently taken to the operating theatre.
Recounting what had transpired, an eyewitness told Stabroek News yesterday that Edghill and his friends were hanging out near the campus’ benab. There was another group of persons consuming alcohol on the tarmac a short distance away.
The eyewitness said one of the guys on the tarmac began beating his girlfriend and because Edghill knew the girl, he went to see what was happening.
Stabroek News was told that the abuser’s friends were heard prompting him to fight with Edghill and shortly after, one of them broke a bottle and stabbed Edghill in the neck and abdomen.
The assailant who is not a university student, but who Stabroek News understands would frequent the campus, fled in his car but later stopped and got out of the vehicle. A friend of the man reportedly then entered the car and drove it away.
Edghill’s brother Leslie, said yesterday that he was full of anger over the killing, but knows that he has to stay strong for his remaining siblings and parents – Dennis Sr and Sarah. He said his parents were not taking the death of Dennis too well, since he was their youngest child.
Asked how he was feeling Leslie replied, “What do you expect? He’s my little brother. I just watched his lifeless body at the mortuary. There’s just a lot of anger, I can’t afford to be sad. I need to hold it up for the others”.
He told this newspaper that Dennis was in the second year of a degree in Communications at UG.
Dennis was described by his brother as a well-rounded young man, with lots of friends. He was a swimming instructor and taekwondo (a Korean martial arts and combat sport) student and had won a few gold medals.
Asked about security on campus in the wake of the killing, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana Tota Mangar said that he and Dr James Rose had left the Turkeyen campus some time after 6 on Friday afternoon and everything was in order.
“There were no boom boxes playing loudly,” he said, adding that he was shocked to hear of the stabbing incident, and further, that the young man had died.
He said the information he had been provided with was sketchy, noting that the police investigation was still ongoing.
Mangar said there are stipulations governing drinking on campus and student and staff identification and noted that the campus has a permanent security presence. He said that from the information he received, the person said to have done the stabbing is not a student of the institution.
But he noted that with Friday having been Open Career Day, he wasn’t sure what might have taken place. He said some of the exhibitors might have been operating bars where alcohol was sold.
