A 77-year-old New York-based Guyanese was yesterday shot dead at his East La Penitence property after he was confronted by two gunmen who were after the gold chain he was wearing.
Dead is Bishop Benjamin Nurse called Benjie of Brooklyn who succumbed to a single gunshot wound to the chest before he could get medical attention at the Georgetown Public Hospital. Nurse who is attached to Nazareth Deliverance Spiritual Church in New York returned to Guyana two weeks ago to check on his properties located in Diamond New Scheme, East Bank Demerara and East La Penitence.
Relatives said he was slated to return to the USA on Sunday.
At the time of his death, he was overseeing clean up works at the East La Penitence house where he has tenants.
Police said in a press release that around 11.15 am, Nurse was confronted by two men, one of whom was armed with a handgun.
The armed man discharged a round which struck Nurse to his body and “the perpetrators took away a gold chain which he was wearing and escaped on foot”
Up to press time last evening police had not arrested anyone.
The brush cutter operator who was with Nurse when the incident occurred told Stabroek News outside the emergency room that just after 11 am they were painting and cleaning up the yard when two men “rush in de yard and grabble he (Nurse) chain”.
The man said that the robbers grabbed the chain the elderly man was wearing before shooting him at close range. They then ran off.
This newspaper was told that both men, said to be well-dressed and in their late 20s to early 30s, escaped through a nearby alleyway.
One resident recalled that moments after hearing what sounded like a gunshot she saw two men on a bicycle speeding through the alleyway which runs through the East La Penitence Housing Scheme. She said it would be very difficult to determine where they went after that because the area is filled with many alleys some of which link the area to North East.
The woman who said she has known Nurse for several years expressed shock at his passing. She said that after hearing the gunshot she immediately came out to see what was going on because it was around that time that her grandson would come home.
Meanwhile when Stabroek News visited the house, a pool of dried blood was evident in the yard. Police had already visited and had concluded their investigations.
One of Nurse’s tenants said that she was inside when she heard a sound. She said that the landlord was there the previous day and came back yesterday to do some work around the yard. She said that when she looked out Nurse was being placed in a car. The woman could not say how the shooting occurred or which direction the shooters fled in.
Relatives yesterday expressed shock at the killing. Speaking via telephone from Brooklyn, one of Nurse’s six children, Yvette said that it was upsetting to know that her father travelled to Guyana for a vacation only to be killed for a gold chain. “How sickening is that”, the grief- stricken woman said.
Stressful place
Esther Elder, who along with another sibling is also vacationing in Guyana told Stabroek News that her brother’s death is very sad. She said that she also lives in the USA but would travel to Guyana to relax. The woman said that relaxation turns to stress with the constant blackouts among other things. “Everything is so upside down”, she said shaking her head.
She pointed out that Nurse wears a “big” chain with two pendants, one of which is a cross but “They didn’t have to kill him”.
Earlier a teary-eyed Elder had told reporters at the hospital that it was recounted to her that he was in the yard with the worker when the men came in. She said that it was a tenant who called her and informed her that Nurse had been shot. She said when she arrived at the East La Penitence property there was a pool of blood at the side of the house and “I said to myself that something was definitely wrong. I don’t think that he is alive”. She said she was informed by the police that he was taken to the hospital and when she arrived at the medical institution she was told to wait.
She said after waiting about 20 minutes for some information she began to suspect that something was wrong. She said that she insisted that she wanted to see her brother and was told that she had to wait to see the doctor, who was with a patient at the time.
The doctor eventually told her that around “11:30 he was shot but when he came here (at the hospital) he didn’t have any life. He was already dead”.
Nurse leaves to mourn his wife, Hyacinth and six children who reside in the USA, five siblings and other relatives.
