More than six months after Dennis Martin of Farm, East Bank Essequibo was beaten to death, his assailants are still on the run and his widow is pleading for them to come forward.
Martin, 36, a cook in the interior was struck to his head and other parts of his body with a piece of wood around 7 pm on December 15 last year, when he approached another resident to inquire about a problem involving his nephew.
His widow Nykedia Martin told Stabroek News that all she wants is justice. She lamented that it is very tough for her to cope with the situation, knowing that she is in grief while the killers are still at large.
“They need to turn themselves in and accept responsibility for what they did. I want the police to make an effort to capture them… We been hearing that they’re in the backdam [interior], we hearing that they in Linden and other places…,” she said.
Martin sustained injuries to his head and back while his left hand was broken.
A post-mortem examination proved that he died as a result of a brain haemorrhage and fractured skull.
With Martin being the sole-breadwinner, Nykedia immediately faced difficulties providing for herself and their seven-year-old son, Daniel. She was depending on help from relatives but has since gotten a job as a cook about a month ago.
It is even more heartbreaking for her as her son would cry for his father almost every night and keeps asking for him to come home.
She described Martin as a peaceful and quiet person and felt that if he had not intervened in the matter involving his nephew and the attackers, he would have still been alive.
The woman recalled that on that fateful night he had left to go the shop nearby to purchase cheese but didn’t get any. He proceeded to another shop a little farther and it was there that he saw one of the brothers who had an issue with his nephew earlier and decided to confront him.
The man was sitting on the back of a pickup truck when Martin approached him. He jumped off and a scuffle ensued, resulting in his brother coming from behind and hitting Martin at the back of his head.
Martin fell to his right side on the road, hitting his head.
The attacker continued hitting Martin and by the time residents realized what was happening and ran to his rescue it was already too late.
He was rushed to the Leonora Hospital where he was treated and transferred to the West Demerara Regional Hospital.
He was subsequently taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he was placed on a life-support machine in the Intensive Care Unit.
Meanwhile, Nykedia had heard that Martin was involved in a fight but when she went to the scene he had already left for the hospital. When she got there he was crying out for pain and telling her he “would not make it… but I tell he don’t say that, you would make it.”
The woman said she saw one of the brothers at the hospital and in response to her questions, he had said, “Dennis went up to he and asked him why you violate my nephew.”
She said the man had also told her that Dennis pulled out an icepick and they started to “chuck” each other. It was at that stage that the brother came from behind and hit him.
The family is pleading for justice.
