A man from Mibicuri, Black Bush Polder, Corentyne, Berbice is in custody, having confessed to killing his wife and burying her body in their backyard, police say.
Mother of four Lilwantie Balack, 39, of Lot 117 Mibicuri North, Black Bush Polder, was last seen during the last week of August, 2016.
Since then, her spouse, Sunildat Balack, 45, had been giving conflicting information on her whereabouts, including the claim that she had left the country. But according to Com-mander of ‘B’ Division Ian Amsterdam, the man told investigators that on September 6, 2016, he and his wife had an argument, which became physical.
Amsterdam said the man claimed that he choked the woman until she died and, in an effort to cover up his crime, he buried her body in their backyard. Accord-ing to the Commander, the man told investigators that he and his wife argued over her wanting to leave the country, which he was against.
Police cordoned off the Black Bush Polder property last evening and they are expected to conduct a search today.
Lilwantie’s eldest daughter, Darshanie Devi Balack, 20, told Stabroek News that she last saw her mother on August 27, 2016.
Darshanie, who resides with her husband at Friendship Village, Corentyne, said that on September 6, last year, her father went to her home and informed that her mother would not be at her wedding and then he left. She noted that on the same day, he told her siblings and other relatives that their mother “fly out.”
“…He give everybody different, different direction,” she said. “First, he tell us that my mother is at Cane Grove… He tell my brother at 66 Village [Corentyne]. When I ask my grandmother, she say she is at Mahaicony,” the young woman related.
According to her, her father had told her brother that someone had picked up their mother in the night. “So them ask he if somebody come pick she up she na carry none clothes or nothing. He tell them that the people them wah pick she up bring clothes and so for she,” she said, noting that all of her mother’s belongings were still at her Black Bush Polder home at the time of her disappearance.
According to Darshanie, although her mother had previously visited the United States, the only relative over there is an uncle. “She na deh with me mamoo [uncle]; he deh looking for she right now,” she said.
The woman said that her parents would fight but would usually make up afterward. “Them does fight and suh. He used to hit she but them use to solve up the problem them self,” she explained.
However, she noted that her family’s suspicions grew when two months after her mother’s reported departure, her father took home a new woman.
Darshanie noticed that the woman, who is 21 years old, was wearing her mother’s wedding ring. “I can watch the ring and know is my mother ring, it fade out and so,” she said, while noting her surprise that her father was in possession of the wedding ring, since her mother would never take it off.
