Andrew Erskine, whose mutilated body was discovered on the Georgetown seawalls on Wednesday, died of asphyxiation caused by drowning, cut wounds to his scrotum and blunt trauma to the head.
There were among the findings of an autopsy performed yesterday on Erskine’s body by government pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh, police said yesterday.
The autopsy also revealed that Erskine sustained concussion injuries to his neck. There were also bruises about the man’s body, which suggest that he may have been beaten.
The 53-year-old’s nude body was found on the shore of the seawalls around midday but Erskine’s family said that he was missing since Tuesday.
A cousin, who asked not be identified, said Erskine left his Fourth Street, Subryanville home around five on Tuesday afternoon and never came back. “I saw him when he left and is till the other day I got a call from his sister telling me that they found a body on the seawalls.
Whoever killed him had to kill him in the morning because his body was fresh when they find him there. It had to happen in the morning,” she told Stabroek News.
“I doubt a sound mind person would do that. It has to be somebody that was mad,” Erskine’s cousin said, while suggesting that it was probably a vagrant that murdered him. She said that her cousin was a peaceful man and would usually be confined to his home since he battled with depression.
She explained that he had been employed with the now defunct Guyana Electricity Corporation (GEC), the precursor to the Guyana Power and Light Inc, but was fired and he had been dealing with depression in the intervening years.
“He don’t do anybody anything. He was depressed and he would go for his walks every afternoon. He would go on the seawalls too,” his cousin said. “He had no enemies, nothing. No story, nothing. That’s why he shouldn’t get into to any trouble,” she added.
The police have said that the investigation into Erskine’s death remains ongoing.
