Police yesterday rearrested a second suspect in the murder of Mc Doom miner Gavin Mc Neil but the case hangs in the balance owing to the non-cooperation of the slain man’s relatives.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud confirmed that the man who had been linked to the crime had been detained during the early afternoon hours. He said the police have to make contact with Mc Neil’s relatives and even if they refuse to cooperate in identifying the man, police are also investigating his link to several armed robberies committed in ‘A Division’.
Police had said in a press release earlier this month that the relatives were “stymieing the investigations” after they refused to attend an identification parade for a second time.
Persaud had said that days after the first suspect was held, he had to be released because the relatives did not attend the ID parade. This suspect was not initially on the police radar. The second person who was suspected to be involved in the murder was later arrested.
Police had said in a press release that around 7.55 pm on February 19, a gang of men attacked McNeil, his two daughters aged 12 and 14 years old and his mother-in-law, June Elwin, 49, moments after they arrived home.
The release said that as McNeil was parking his vehicle, the others proceeded to the house, where they were confronted by the robbers. Elwin said there were five of them.
According to the police, the men, two of whom were armed with guns and the others with knives and cutlasses, forced their captives to call out to McNeil’s wife, Melissa McNeil, 32, who opened the door for them. Melissa had stayed home since she was feeling unwell.
The armed men then took away an undisclosed sum of cash, a quantity of jewellery and a cell phone and escaped.
It was as they were making their way out of the compound that they shot McNeil four times to his neck and shoulder. He was later pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
