The man arrested in connection with the shooting to death of Tyrone Boodhoo has been released from custody after he provided investigators with an alibi.
The man was detained for questioning after police received information that he and the deceased had a dispute.
Boodhoo, 32, of of Better Hope, East Coast Demerara, was fatally shot around 9:25pm on Sunday in what appeared to be an armed robbery gone wrong. But his companion at the time of the robbery, Martha Mohamed, is saying that multiple people saw the wounded man after the robbery and did not attempt to help him until the police arrived.
Police had said that Boodhoo and Mohamed were at the seawall in the vicinity of Vryheid’s Lust, when they were confronted by two men, who ordered them to lie on the ground. Boodhoo attempted to escape, the police had said, but was shot by one of the men. He was later pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The perpetrators took away a cell phone from Mohamed and escaped.
A post-mortem examination revealed that he sustained three gunshot wounds. He died as a result of perforation to the lungs and liver, due to gunshot injuries.
Mohamed, who has been accused of knowing more about the fatal attack than she has told investigators, yesterday denied any involvement in Boodhoo’s death and said that they were making plans to make their love for each other known publicly and start a life together.
“The family is alleging that I am involved…but that is not true,” said an emotional Mohamed, who contacted Stabroek News because she wanted to give her side of the story.
Mohamed explained that it was Boodhoo who insisted that they see each other on Sunday night. They spent several hours together before they decided that it was time to head home and they took the route which led them to the seawall.
She recalled that they were laughing and gaffing when they noticed two men coming towards them on a bicycle. They were not suspicious of the men, she explained, because they had never been attacked on the seawall before.
However, she said that the men rode past them, dropped their bicycle and started walking towards them.
Prank
One of the men instructed them to lie on the ground but because of their state of shock at the turn of events they did not move. “I thought someone was playing a prank,” Mohamed recounted, while adding that the man who yelled the instruction then said, “I didn’t tell y’all lie down on the ground?”
Afterward, Mohamed heard a gunshot and then two more. She said that it after the gunshots that Boodhoo ran
According to her, the two robbers scrambled her phone, jumped on the bicycle and rode off. She stressed that the area was dark and so she did not see anything.
Left standing alone on the seawall, she said she began walking thinking that Boodhoo either ran through a nearby street or had jumped over the seawall. However, she heard a groaning sound and when she looked she saw him lying face down on the ground.
She said that she began hollering for help but no one came. She then saw a car and when she explained what had happened the occupants drove off. She said that she turned back and headed back to the shop where they were earlier and the proprietor went back with her to the spot where Boodhoo was.
Mohamed said that by then persons had gathered and though Boodhoo was begging to be taken to the hospital no one took him. Sometime later, a police vehicle arrived and the wounded man was placed inside. She said that on the way to the hospital he was rolling in pain and at one point had to be restrained by ranks. Shortly after his arrival at the hospital, he died.
Plans
Mohamed, who said she was in love with Boodhoo since she was 13-years-old, also disclosed that they were planning on revealing their relationship to her parents on her 26th birthday later this month and move in together.
She explained that her relatives had forbidden her from getting involved with Boodhoo when she was younger and subsequently married her off. She said that after nine years of marriage, she and her husband decided to part ways and their marriage is now being dissolved.
She added that she saw Boodhoo again last October and they started talking and the relationship blossomed. They started meeting secretly in the area, Mohamed noted, while explaining that she was afraid to reveal the relationship to her parents because of Boodhoo’s lifestyle and the fact that they did not like him.
According to Mohamed, it was because his mother put him out that Boodhoo had ended up living at the home of the mother of his child, after previously sleeping on the road.
She made in clear that the woman, who also lives in her street, had moved on and was in a relationship with someone else. (This was the man arrested for questioning because he and Boodhoo previously had a dispute.) She said that she could not move Boodhoo into her home because of her relatives’ dislike for him.
But she added that she encouraged Boodhoo to live a good life and based on what she saw he was a changed man.
