A taxi-driver was found dead at his Bagotstown, East Bank Demerara home during the wee hours yesterday and his family suspects foul play.
Dead is Raoul Anthony Melville, 31, of Lot 43 Norton Street, Bagotstown. The body of the father of three, was discovered by his 11-year-old son at about 8:45 hrs. According to the police, the boy found the body lying motionless on the floor in the hall area of the house. It was also reported that the western door was open and the bedroom was ransacked. There was no sign of forced entry.
According to the victim’s mother, Shaifali Melville, of the same address, she was washing clothes when she sent her grandson to take a message to his father. Shortly after, the child came running to her and informed her that something was wrong. “Like Tony dead, he on the ground and he isn’t breathing,” the boy told her. She immediately dropped what she was doing and went to the backhouse to check. Upon entering she noticed that her son was not breathing, but refused to believe he was dead. She said that she had hoped he had passed out or was sleeping, but when she called out to him he didn’t respond. She noticed he was not breathing and proceeded to check his body which she said was still warm at the time. Blood was running from his nose, he had scratches on his back, and his head appeared to have been hit by a hard surface because there was also bleeding there. There were also bruises on his neck, which she said looked like marks caused by strangling. She assumes that he died during the early morning hours.
The mother recounted that she awakened at around 3 am and then again at 4 am, but didn’t notice anything strange and proceeded to do her usual routine before going back to sleep. She woke again around 7 am and started her house work.
The woman described the state of the house and said that the man’s bed net was torn and that the bed was broken as if he was pushed onto it during a struggle. Based on her assumptions, there was a scuffle and Raoul was pushed into the northern wall of the bedroom, which had a wall divider on the other side of it. She said the wall divider was pushed from its usual place likely as a result of the impact of whatever was happening in the room. She added that the flat-screen television was also on the floor of the bedroom. Also, her son’s body seemed to have been dragged into the living room and one of the chairs was thrown onto his feet, while the rest were disarranged.
The elder Melville said her family suspects that the man was murdered by someone he knew and had a grievance with. “That’s the altercation that we know about.” She then explained that her son’s car was hit by another recently and the person who hit him asked to settle the issue without getting the police involved. However, when the time came to pay for the damage, the man chased Raoul away with a cutlass. She said the person lives in a nearby village. “At this point in time I don’t know what to say because them is the only altercation I know about. I don’t know what transpired, [or] who did it, but I think it was more than one person did it.” She noted that her son weighed 250 pounds and doesn’t think that one person could’ve tackled him and killed him in such a manner.
She lamented that discovering her son dead yesterday morning was unbelievable. “It was unbelievable to have to wake up to something like that. To see my big son died in that manner. If somebody did kill him, they kill him because he had to know them. They wanted him to not identify them so they had to done he,” the woman tearfully declared.
She mentioned that the man’s wife was not at home at the time because she and the children were staying at her sister-in-law and that if the wife was at home, she suspects it might not have happened. But because whoever did it knew he was alone and so they killed him. According to Shaifali, Raoul was an “okay” person who didn’t get involved in trouble.
The body was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital and officially pronounced dead.
The deceased is currently at the Lyken Funeral Parlour awaiting a post mortem.
Police investigations are ongoing
