Derrick Mathias, 47, reportedly hung himself in Bartica on Boxing Day morning but his family is calling on the police to conduct further investigations as they believe there was foul play.
“He was found kneeling and the rope around his neck was so loose that you could have lifted it off of his neck. That is how the police and my brother-in-law found him,” Mathias’ older sister Janice Burgan said.
According to the woman, her brother’s death was made known to the family by the woman he had been living with for the past two and a half years in Bartica.
Police have since told the family that they are treating the matter as a suicide since there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. His family, however, maintains that something is amiss. “The policeman say, ‘You can’t see the man hang heself?’ when we ask for more investigation,” Burgan said.
The woman said the last time any relatives saw the man was on Christmas Day, when he visited another sister in Campbellville, in the company of the young woman he had been living with. Burgan explained that the couple had an argument after the woman left to take her child at a relative and returned in the company of a man she said was her brother-in-law. Mathias, however, claimed he did not know the man and became annoyed and the two had a misunderstanding before the woman left. “My sister tried to console him and told him to stay and enjoy the Christmas but the next day he said he had to leave to go back in the bush as he had to take ration for his workers,” Burgan added.
A sister in Linden subsequently received a call from the woman, who indicated that the man had killed himself.
Burgan said what makes the situation strange is the fact that the woman is claiming that she never lived with their brother. “Nothing was found in the home and no clothes, not even the boots he was wearing when he left my sister, was found. So, I want to know where my brother was living, if he lived no where,” she said.
Mathias and his companion reportedly owned a dredge in the interior.
Burgan said her brother-in-law, who works in the interior, indicated that whenever he was passing through Bartica he would spend a night or two with the couple. He also told her that “they had a well furnished house.” Burgan said, “I don’t want to blame anyone or say anything about anyone but something is not right and we want the police to investigate more.”
