Port Kaituma dredge owner and miner Andy Whyte, whose partially decomposed body was discovered at Massawini, is suspected to have been robbed of raw gold and the suspect has been released on station bail.
Speaking briefly with Stabroek News yesterday, Crime Chief Seelall Persaud confirmed that the suspect, who was employed by Whyte, was released from custody. Investigations, Persaud stressed, are continuing into the circumstances surrounding the murder of Whyte.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Persaud further said, has since been consulted regarding the case. However, he could not say whether a file was prepared and forwarded to the DPP for advice on whether to proceed with charges against the suspect. Two Saturdays ago Whyte’s partially decomposed body was found in the Massawini area, about a three-hour drive away from Port Kaituma. In a press release issued on February 27, police had said that the body was discovered at Eye Lash Backdam, which is a one hour drive from Massawini.
Several days before the 40-year-old man was discovered dead, his reputed wife had reported him missing at the Port Kaituma Police Station. Whyte had left for a dredge operation, which he owns, with another man and after he failed to return the woman went to police. An autopsy determined that he was stabbed to death.
Port Kaituma residents, a source within the community and who is close to the investigation told this newspaper, are outraged that police have released the suspect. There are many factors, the source insisted, which they believe police have overlooked.
“When they first arrested this man he denied knowing Andy. He tell police that he had never seen the man before…it was after police visited the mining camp that they found out that the man had worked with Andy,” the source explained.
The source further said that other persons from the mining camp had informed police that the suspect left the location without any raw gold in his possession. However, when the man was picked up by police he had a quantity of the raw gold in his possession.
“This man [the suspect] came in the area for the first time and I don’t know what was the arrangement between he and Andy but Andy decide to give him some work and he travel in there with Andy,” the source said.
Employees from the mining camp, according to the source, had reported that the suspect left the camp shortly after Whyte departed the location. “Employees have confirmed that the clothes he [the suspect] left the camp in is not the same clothes he was picked up in…police have made no effort to locate those clothes…there might have been blood stains or something else on those garments that could have served as evidence,” the source noted.
Several days before Whyte was found dead, the source further reported, the suspect had a “disturbing” conversation with a resident. “The resident told me that he and this man talk and the man tell him that he going to kill Andy and no one would find him again,” the source reported.
The source, speaking on behalf of other concerned residents, stated that there is more investigators can do to move the Whyte murder investigation along.
