While police continue to search for two men suspected to be responsible for the attack in a Port Mourant rice field that left two men dead and others injured, the widow of one of the victims said she has lost all faith in law enforcement to deliver justice.
Chepille Layne, the father of two of Beverley Crawford’s children was gunned down in the Port Mourant Backlands in January, along with Krishnaraj Jagdeo, called “Chris,” in what police have described as a revenge attack. Injured in the shooting were Zameel Abrahim, 24, of Tain, Corentyne; David Harpaul, 37, of Rose Hall, Coren-tyne, and Clement Griffith, 48, of Port Mourant. Abrahim was said to have been the most critical. It was only last month that he was removed from the High Dependency Unit of the Georgetown Hospital and transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
Griffith, of Ankerville, Port Mourant had told this newspaper that he and the others left the Follow-up Co-op around 3 pm by boat and not long after two unmasked men came out and fired at them. “I did not look at them but I saw two men…. They were on the dam and they called out to us and start shooting,” Griffith recounted.
According to him, it appeared as if the gunmen had been hiding in the bushes. He said there was no exchange of words between the two parties. “All they did was shoot… the incident didn’t take long… about five minutes,” he said.
Asked if he had any idea why they were attacked, Griffith said he did not.
A still grief stricken Crawford recently told Stabroek News from her home in Corentyne, Berbice, that she is yet to hear from the investigators who had taken her number and pledged to keep her informed on the investigation.
A number of persons had been detained in the days after the shooting and were released without charge. Crime Chief Seelall Persaud recently told Stabroek News that police are looking for two people in connection with the shooting.
Stabroek News was reliably informed by a source in Berbice that one of those being sought is a close relative of a man Jagdeo had been accused of killing.
It was Persaud who had said that the motive for the shooting may have been revenge. He had explained that one of the men wounded in the attack had positively identified one of the shooters as the relative of the late Alfred Munroe, 45, called ‘Guana Man,’ who had threatened to take revenge. This would have been after five men charged with Munroe’s murder, including Jagdeo, were freed at the end of the preliminary inquiry into the murder charge.
On May 9 last year, Munroe succumbed after he was beaten by persons; he had been accused of being involved in a break and enter at Port Mourant, Corentyne, Berbice.
A teary-eyed Crawford, speaking outside her Number 1 Village, home explained that her husband worked at GuySuCo and also did part time work during the out-of-crop season with a businessman in the Port Mourant backdam area for about nine or ten years.
She recalled that on the night of January 30, one of the businessman’s workers came and told her that her husband had been hurt. She recalled that she travelled to the Port Mourant Hospital, where she later saw her husband’s lifeless remains.
“I confirmed it was him and I start hollering and I fall down…When I reach home I see a crowd by me bridge and I fall down and start roll up,” she said.
Crawford noted that her husband’s employers took care of all the funeral arrangements. She recalled that the businessman was with her every step of the way. “He did his best. I can’t complain. But what I am trying to say and what I am pressing on, no one besides them visit me,” she said, adding that her husband was shot and buried like a pig and to date police cannot tell her who is responsible.
Wrong place, wrong time
Crawford told Stabroek News that her husband was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She added that because people are saying all sorts of things about what led to the shooting, she is unclear about what she should believe. “This whole thing is a confusing story but I know that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said. “You are hearing a whole lot of mix up story. Is a whole set… you hearing different, different story and I ain’t saying wha I ain’t know. Almighty Father knows who killed my husband,” she added.
The woman again stressed that she is far from satisfied with the work the police have done so far. “Nobody ain’t coming and telling me nothing, they just throw me husband story at de carna and they even throw me in de carna because nobody till now ain’t come,” she said.
She was also unaware of the persons who are being sought by the police.
She told Stabroek News that she has lost her husband and there is nothing that can bring him back and she sees little sense is pursing the matter and thinks it best to leave it in the hands of God. She said she has given up on the police ensuring that she gets justice.
“Till now I can’t ketch meh self. At least police could have come and say something. ‘We ain’t hear nothing, we ain’t get no feedback.’ He dead like a hog. We are the loser. I am disappointed,” she said, while noting that their children are taking the death hard. “I lef everything in the hands of God. God knows it. Meh husband ain’t do nothing and they kill him,” she stressed.
According to Crawford, she still cries a lot, especially since the sole breadwinner for her family is now gone. She is currently unemployed. “I leave without a husband and I have a son writing CXC and I have to find money every day for my son to go and tek in he education. But God knows best. He will help me,” she said.
