A Chinese businesswoman was killed last night by bandits after her premises were invaded shortly after 8 pm.
The dead woman has been identified as 49-year-old Jin Li Lai, Co-owner of Sue’s Chinese Restaurant of No.57 Village, Corentyne, Berbice.
She succumbed at the Skeldon Public Hospital shortly after being rushed there by the Upper Berbice Community Policing Group. She was shot to the face. No one else was physically hurt although her husband was traumatized and had to be sedated.
“We came out to do patrol and stopped (to talk) to Mr. Gobin Harbajan and I overhear a noise like somebody screaming ‘Help!’… We speed off to the noise and about four houses down see Sue screaming saying bandit just kill he wife,” Head of the Upper Corentyne Policing Group Radika Singh told Stabroek News last night.
“The four a we rush inside and see he wife bleeding …he tell us that they were having Chinese New Year’s dinner and they hear like the money drawer drop and the children run cause they think is robbery and he wife turn around same time the bandit see them and fire a shot and run out the back,” Singh said.
She informed that she immediately dialed the district’s precinct and officers there swiftly arrived and sped the woman to the Skeldon Hospital. At the time, she was still breathing and while medical personnel were attending to her she succumbed.
The husband explained to the first responders that the bandits gained access to the home from the back of the building and were in the process of carrying out the robbery when they were interrupted.
This is not the first time bandits have attacked the family, in 2014 they were also robbed.
Police are investigating.
The police today issued the following press release on the matter: