Police were yesterday pursuing leads in Friday afternoon’s armed robbery in Meadow Brook Gardens, which left the wife of senior mining official of the Roraima Mining Company SILICA Ltd with a gunshot wound to her right arm.
The victim, Barbara Welch-Walrond, wife of Director of Roraima Mining Company SILICA Ltd Dr Grantley Walrond, was reportedly shot once to her right arm by one of two men who attacked her in front of her home at 305 Jamoon Drive, Meadow Brook Gardens, before carting off $2 million in cash.
According to an eyewitness, the attack occurred just around 2 pm on Friday just as Welch-Walrond was about to enter her yard.
The eyewitness related that he had seen Welch-Waldron driving through her street, but had immediately got an uneasy feeling when he noticed an unfamiliar silver Toyota vehicle driving slowly behind her.
Not long after he considered the possibility of the two men in the unfamiliar car being bandits, he heard a single gunshot and screams coming from the direction of the woman’s house.
Almost immediately, the eyewitness said the men, one of whom he described as being “light-skinned,” got back into the car and drove out the way they came. “When I see her pass, I saw the car behind and I see these two men in the car behind, I just feel a way seeing this unfamiliar car following her like that. And just as she turn the corner to reach her house, I see them behind speed up and I got scared and I tried to get a look at the number plate… I only got the last two numbers which was 47,” the man explained.
“I hear the mistress scream out and just after that I heard a gunshot and then I tried calling for assistance while I hid behind the fence. The car then turn around and make one speed out; I tried getting a better look at the number plate but I was afraid they would’ve seen,” he added.
Within minutes of the robbery, however, the man said Welch-Walrond ventured over the bridge that separates the two streets, where she got assistance from him and another man who was present. She was reportedly then taken to the hospital where she was treated for her wound and subsequently discharged.
Stabroek News understands that the woman had uplifted a payroll from the Republic Bank’s Camp Street branch and that the men could have trailed her from the bank before committing the robbery.
Police had reportedly retrieved a bullet from the scene and checked at residences to ascertain if any security cameras had recorded the attack. They have not yet linked anyone to the robbery, but are actively pursuing all leads presented to them as investigations in the matter continue, Stabroek News was told by a senior officer yesterday.
