A 41-year-old mini-bus conductor was stabbed to death at Stabroek Market square just after midnight yesterday following an argument with another man.
Police said they arrested the person who stabbed Godfrey Hoyte called ‘Brian’ and ‘Bruk-up’. Hoyte, of Shell Road, Kitty was stabbed twice and died as police rushed him to the Georgetown Public Hospital. The murder is being investigated by law enforcement authorities. In a statement, the police said the incident occurred five minutes after midnight. Investi-gations so far revealed that Hoyte was involved in an argument with another man during which he was stabbed, the police said.
The suspect was arrested and is in custody, while the knife believed to have been used has been recovered by the police, the statement said. Relatives said they were told different stories on how the killing occurred.
Hoyte’s reputed wife of six years, Vanella Carter, told Stabroek News that she received a call early in the morning and rushed to the hospital but Hoyte had already been moved to the mortuary. She said she visited the bar where he had been drinking and was told Hoyte had earlier had an argument with another man. She said she was told that the men argued and the assailant pulled a knife and Hoyte picked up a piece of wood and parried the thrusts.
After the assailant’s attack was not successful, he moved off, Carter said. However, as her husband left the bar to catch a bus to go home, shortly after midnight, the attacker was waiting and struck. Hoyte was stabbed twice; once in the heart and another close to the heart, she said. The city constabulary was notified and they called the police, who transported Hoyte to the hospital.
She said when the police arrived, the suspect was found sitting with the blood-covered knife in his hands. He was promptly arrested. She said she was told that the police have statements which say that it was he who committed the act.
But Carter said, she was also told that it was another man who stabbed Hoyte and placed the knife in the arrested man’s hands. She said it was reportedly a man with whom Hoyte had an “old grievance”. She said after Hoyte was stabbed he fell but got up twice. Hoyte had gone to the bar after finishing work.
Carter said that her reputed husband’s parents, siblings and two children all live in the United States. She said he was sent back from that country about 15 years ago after being imprisoned. His relatives however, were planning to apply for him to return. He is the brother of 29-year-old Nicholas Hoyte who was shot dead execution-style in Albouystown in January, Carter said.
She said she had left their Kitty apartment to spend the weekend at a relative in West Ruimveldt and had last spoken to Hoyte on Saturday when he called to find out how she was doing. She said she did not know of any problems he had and he was not one to speak of problems if he had any.
Hoyte is survived by his parents Monty Hoyte and Gloria Lovell, his grandmother, two children and other relatives. He was the eldest son of his parents. “He like he music and all them kind a thing”, Carter reminisced. She said his daughter, who is now 21, had last seen her father when she was seven years old but they communicated with each other.