A labourer was remanded to prison after he appeared at the Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate’s Court on Friday, charged with the murder of elderly farmer, Rudolph Moonsammy.
Patrick Anthony Balgobin, 29, of Lot 3, St Lawrence, East Bank Essequibo, was not required to plead to the capital offence of murder and was remanded to prison by Magistrate Nyasha Hatmin. It is alleged that the accused on June 7 at St Lawrence, he murdered Moonsammy.
Moonsammy, 73, lived alone in his Lot 3 St Lawrence home where he managed a poultry farm owned by his US-based son. Reports said that some time around 6.30 pm on June 7, Moonsammy attempted to reprimand his drunken employee, Balgobin, who had been verbally abusing his wife and had chopped a co-worker earlier that evening. Balgobin reportedly attacked Moonsammy battering him in the head and chopping him. A neighbour witnessed the incident but made no attempt to help. It was later that other residents found the man unconscious in his bedroom.
Roy Madraymootoo told this newspaper last Thursday that his father never regained consciousness. Moonsammy was initially taken to the Leonora Cottage Hospital after the attack and was transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital several hours later. He succumbed to his wounds early Thursday morning while a patient of the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. An autopsy revealed that he died from a fractured skull and brain laceration.
Balgobin will appear again on September 1 at the Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate’s Court.