Almost $100 million in cash, gold and diamonds was taken from the Second Avenue, Bartica house, where the bodies of two gold dealers were discovered on Sunday morning.
Ramdeo Deonarine, 50, of Ruby, East Bank Essequibo and Jainarine Raghubar, 43, of Fairfield, Essequibo Coast were discovered on the kitchen floor of the house. They bore deep wounds to the throat and they were bound.
The men were last seen after midnight on Saturday when they left a party. When Stabroek News visited the scene on Sunday neighbours had said that no one was seen entering the house after Deonarine and Raghubar. The missing cash and minerals reportedly belonged to Deonarine and the owner of the house, Ricky Ramnarine.
The young lady, who made the grim discovery on Sunday, recounted the ordeal yesterday morning to Stabroek News, moments after she was allowed to leave Bartica by police. She said that she travelled to the area to meet Deonarine as they had made prior plans to travel to areas in Region Seven.
Deonarine, she said, was her friend and he had invited her to Bartica to spend the day with him on Sunday at the house on Second Avenue. She did not know much about Raghubar, but she knew that Deonarine conducted business with a number of persons.
She said she last spoke to Deonarine some time before midnight on Saturday but he did not indicate where he was going or where he was at the time. On Sunday, she left for Bartica around 9 am and arrived there between 10:30 am and 11 am. After arriving, she tried several times to call Deonarine but got the man’s voicemail. She then decided to travel to the house at Second Avenue and when she arrived there she recalled seeing a grilled gate, which led to the front, open, with the padlock hanging on the grill.
The woman said that she kicked the door open since she realised something “didn’t mek sense” and on entering the house she observed the living room disarranged with splats of blood on the floor. On a chair nearby there was a hacksaw blade, which was later retrieved by the police, while two empty black plastic bags lay on the floor. At this point she immediately left the house and called out to a neighbour for assistance and the two then trailed the spots of blood leading to the men’s bound bodies on the kitchen floor. Their hands and feet were tied with the same piece of rope, she recalled, while several holes were evident on their throats.
Police said post-mortem examinations found that they both died of shock and haemorrhaging due to incised wounds to the throat.
Both men, according to the woman, carried licenced fire-arms. Sources at Bartica said yesterday that the weapons, like the jewellery and cash, were missing from the scene. The young lady related that she was questioned extensively by police at Bartica before she was allowed to leave for the city yesterday.
Meanwhile, residents told this newspaper yesterday that Deonarine was a friendly individual who shared information with many persons about his life. It is believed that this may have caused his death since earlier on Saturday evening he man reportedly told persons about his plans for a gas station he was constructing at Ruby.
Deonarine was well known in the gold mining community.
Talk in the community yesterday was that the killings may have been carried out by persons known to the two gold dealers. The attack was seen as well-planned since while the CCTV cameras in the house were not working, the intruder(s) smashed a computer as well as other equipment in a section of the house where they were being kept. “This is definitely an indicator that they knew the CCTV system was there and they destroyed any equipment that might have stored recordings,” a source said.
