A Guyanese man was found dead at his Handsome Bay, British Virgin Islands apartment on Monday and police there are treating the death as suspicious.
Dead is Jerome Gurdayal, 42, who is originally from Goedverwagting, East Coast Demerara.
Gurdayal had been employed at a hotel, where he did maintenance work.
According to the VI Platinum News, the Police Information Office stated that members of the Royal Virgin Islands Police are investigating Gurdayal’s death. Gurdayal, who lived on Virgin Gorda, was found in his apartment in Handsome Bay, the report said, and the police stated that they are treating the circumstances surrounding his death as suspicious and unexplained. Arrangements are being made for a post-mortem, the information office said.
Yesterday at Gurdayal’s Goedverwagting home, his wife Indradyal, called ‘Sherry,’ was surrounded by relatives and friends. Black flags were already up in front of the house and several were up on lantern posts in the area.
The distraught Indradyal, with whom the man fathered two children, said her husband had been residing on the islands for some 18 to 20 years. He would return home every year.
Indradyal explained that she would hear from her husband every day.
She recalled that last Thursday they spoke and all was well. But when he did not call the following day and several calls to his phone went unanswered, Indradyal decided to call her husband’s boss.
The woman said that when she called “Ms Tina” on Monday, she told her that Gurdayal was at work last Friday but she had not seen him since.
The woman told Indradyal that she would send her nephew to check for him at his home and that she should call back. It was when she called back that she received the devastating news.
According to Indradyal, the nephew went to the apartment and found it locked but Gurdayal’s husband’s vehicle was in the yard. The young man made numerous calls and after he did not receive any answer he broke the door. It was after this was done that he found Gurdayal lying in a pool of blood.
He immediately informed his aunt, who contacted relatives of Gurdayal who lived nearby.
Indradyal said that her husband’s boss kept telling her that if it was not for her, no one would have known he was lying dead in his house. She said that her husband’s sister, who also resides on the islands, told her that “everything is in the police hand.” She added that as far as she knew, her husband had no problems or complaints with/about anyone and his death came as a shock.
She recalled that her husband returned home last April and was scheduled to come again next month. In a sad tone, Indradyal said that he promised their six year old daughter that he would come home for Easter and the child was anxiously awaiting his return.
Their other child is 17-years-old old. “The last time he been here things were good and we were happy,” she said, while adding that when the police are finished with the body it will be flown here for burial.
