The family of watchman Darnley King, whose body was found in a mining camp at White Water, Konawaruk, last Tuesday, says there are a lot of inconsistencies in the accounts of his death, which an autopsy found was caused by multiple blunt trauma.
Colwyn King told Stabroek News that while employers say the man was sick, a post-mortem examination done yesterday revealed the cause of death as brain haemorrhage due to multiple blunt trauma.
Police yesterday said investigations are currently ongoing into the King’s death.
The man’s brother added that last Friday the doctor refused to conduct the post-mortem examination because the body was beyond recognition. “I shared my concerns with the doctor and told him that the death was suspicious. My brother was murdered. They beat him to death on his bed for whatever reason. Yesterday we even had to go to Labour Ministry because they are refusing to pay the money they owed my brother for the work he had done because they say they had to deduct money from the airfare to transport him from Mahdia to Ogle,” King said of his brother’s last employers.
He noted that his family learnt of his brother’s death after his employers from the interior called one of his sisters and initially reported that he was sick and then called back to say that he was dead.
“The woman who he used to work for…, her daughter called my sister and say that my brother is sick and my sister told her, ‘All wah yuh do as long as he ain’t dead.’ The same day we received a message that he had died,” King said.
“We are receiving a set of different stories. One time we are hearing that he was sick and that he died whilst crossing a creek. One time about three weeks ago they say how he was sick and that they had paid this guy $10,000 to bring him out but the guy never reach to bring him out. My brother was a strong man. This is not adding up,” the man said.
He related that the family started its own investigation since family members were not satisfied with the information they were receiving and when King’s body was brought out of the interior on Thursday his sister went to identify the body and there was blood oozing from his eyes and mouth. “We started getting concerned then, because all the time these people were saying that my brother was sick and they gave us the impression that he died on his way out of the interior,” he said.
According to King, a scenario in February led them to become suspicious of their brother’s employers. He stated that on the night of February 23rd of this year, after a night out with several members, they had received a message from the daughter of (the employer) who said that their brother had committed a murder. “After we heard this, we went around to several police stations and they say that we probably get it wrong. We even went around to several mortuaries, but we had no luck. Eventually we put a missing person’s report in the newspaper and two days later he appeared,” he explained.
King said that as soon as his brother appeared, he quickly disappeared and that it was only when another brother, Mervin, was coming out from Mahdia in March that they learnt that Darnley was going to work in the bush for the Higgins.
King also said that two years ago, the original owner of the dredge and his son were murdered at the same camp after two men shot him, and a short time later his son was hacked to death by the same men.
King leaves to mourn his two sons and daughter.
