Police from the Mahaicony Station are conducting searches for a prisoner, Collin Sealey of Zes Kinderen, Mahaicony who is feared dead after he jumped into the river upon escaping at around 11:15 am yesterday.
In a release, police said that an officer had taken Sealey out of the lock-ups to be transported to the Cove and John Magistrate’s Court when he made a dash for freedom.
Police said that the man overpowered the officer and ran out of the station onto the Mahaicony Bridge and then plunged overboard.
Persons who ran towards the [old] bridge as the news spread about the escape, related that the man was seen “coming up and down a few times”
before he became “caught up in the current” and disappeared. They said too that the current was “very strong.”
Police had said that he was feared dead but in a subsequent release, said they are “conducting searches and making inquiries in order to ascertain the true position with him.”
Sealey was arrested around 4:30 pm on Tuesday following reports about threatening behaviour, assault and indecent exposure.
His wife, Allison Leitch, 47 could not contain her emotions last evening when Stabroek News visited her. In tears, she said she had begged him not to go anywhere and that she would “continue to put her trust in God.”
She was certain that something had gone horribly wrong though “because he would have come home already…”
She recalled that around 6:30 pm on Tuesday, “a little girl came with his bicycle and some bicycle oil [he had bought] and told me he was at the station and wanted me to go.”
Leitch who has been in a relationship with him for five years, learnt that he “had a misunderstanding with a woman and she claimed that he showed her his privates.” Reports are that the woman who is related to him was drinking with him and other persons.
His wife said she asked the police if he could go home but he was “under the influence and was misbehaving so the police said they could not loose him.”
She returned in the morning around 8 am to take breakfast and the police said he would “have to wait on the sergeant.”
According to her, she was preparing lunch to take for him when a neighbour informed her that he had jumped overboard. She hurried to the scene and was crying as persons consoled her.
The man operates a dredge in the interior and one month ago he left it in the care of a relative and returned home to do his fishing business.
The woman said sadly that her husband is not a habitual drinker and that “every day he hustling for a daily bread.”
In September 2010, another prisoner had done the same thing – rushed out of the station and plunged into the river.
Gordon Maxwell, 30, of Calcutta, Mahaicony had made an attempt at escaping after he was placed on $45,000 bail on tax evasion charges.
Maxwell, a promoter and an antenna maker, made an appearance at the Mahaicony Magistrate’s Court on tax evasion charges. After he was placed on bail, his uncle Wilbert Inniss said, “We were together. We were looking to get bail money.”
According to Inniss when Maxwell was summoned to the court the family had gathered some money but it fell short of the bail that was granted. Inniss added that after the court sessions were ended for the day, he approached the magistrate. Maxwell was downstairs with the police officers.
“I approached the magistrate after to ask for audience. He listened to me attentively and I ask him if he can consider the bail, if he can reduce it. Whilst asking we hear people shouting that a man jump overboard. When we look through the window we see Maxwell head and subsequently we hear gunshot rang out.
“The magistrate shouted at the police not to shoot the man. Subsequently he went under and he was never seen again,” Inniss recalled.
Inniss had explained previously that Maxwell was not in handcuffs at the time because he was not considered high-profile. He said the man managed to run away from the police and jump into the river.
His body was later found. The police had been criticized over the handling of this matter and an investigation had been launched.
