A boy is now dead after being shot by one of two bandits who invaded his neighbour’s home where he and his mother were visiting yesterday.
Dead is 11-year-old Anthony Cort, of Lot 612 Packet Corner, ‘C’ Field, Sophia.
A Guyana Police Force statement said that the boy was shot dead by one of two bandits during a robbery at about 1 pm yesterday. It was reported that Cort and his mother, Denise McPherson, were at the Lot 614 Packet Corner home of businesswoman Monette Famey when two men wearing face masks and armed with handguns stormed in.
At the time of the invasion, the police said, Cort was in the upper flat of the house along with Famey’s son, while Famey herself, her aunt, Ena Skerette, who is a pensioner and McPherson were in the bottom flat.
According to the police, the bandits held the women in the bottom flat at gun point and relieved them of their valuables before ordering them to go to the upper flat to retrieve more valuables and money.
However, according to McPherson and Famey, they told the men that there was no more money or valuables in the upper flat. But the men did not believe.
The two women, when contacted last evening, told Stabroek News that they followed the instructions given to them and went upstairs. While in the upper flat, the women continued to deny the existence of more valuables and McPherson said she suspects that her son heard the noise. She said he pulled the blind at the door of the room and when he came out he was shot by one of the bandits. The police report stated that the bullet hit the boy in his left shoulder and that he fell to the ground immediately afterward. A 9mm spent shell was later found near the body.
It was reported by the victims that the bandits escaped by running through the back door and jumping the back fence. Emergency Medical Technicians responded and pronounced Anthony dead. The scene was processed and his body was taken to Lyken Funeral Parlour to await an autopsy. Statements were taken, and investigations are continuing, the police said.
McPherson was devastated over the murder of her son. She noted that he was the only boy—she has three daughters. Another daughter was murdered in 2015.
The woman said she told Cort that she was going to the shop and because he is a friend of Famey’s son, he asked go with her. After arriving, she started to converse with Famey, while her son went upstairs to play with his friend. She said that during that time the bandits attacked them. The woman was in tears when she told this newspaper that she is heartbroken and that she hasn’t been able to go and visit her dead son because of how saddened she has become.
Her 14-year-old daughter told this newspaper that she doesn’t think McPherson and her husband will cope well in light of the fact that he is the second child of theirs to be murdered.
McPherson informed that one of her daughters, Alicia McPherson, was murdered in 2015. Last year, the girl’s murderer, her boyfriend, Shivanand Roopnarine, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime.
Cort’s sister noted that her brother, who was a student of the St. Ambrose Primary School, had been preparing to sit the National Grade Six examinations.
Meanwhile, Famey told this newspaper that she is very traumatised by what happened. The mother of one said that she buried her husband just a few weeks ago and that the attack has left her sad and upset.
The men relieved Famey of two gold bands valued $100,000, two gold rings valued $100,000, a cellphone valued $80,000 and $80,000 in cash, while they relieved her aunt of an
$80,000 cellphone, and McPherson of a gold chain valued $100,000.
