Latest update September 28th, 2026 10:20 AM
Murder accused escapes from lock-ups, family turns him in
As police ranks at the Turkeyen Police Station conducted routine checks of their station yesterday morning, they discovered that a murder accused had escaped through a hole at the western end of the building, during the night.
The hole was made by the escaping prisoner, who ripped a sanitary fitting from the wall.
However, fortunately for ranks at the station, the escapee’s mother and other relatives turned him over to the police at around 22:20 hrs last night.
The police identified the youth as 17-year-old Leon Paul. He appeared before the Magistrate at the Cove and John Magistrate’s Court, on January 28, 2009, and was remanded to police custody for court on February 10, 2009.
Following the discovery of his escape, the police launched a search of the area surrounding the station and the Dazzell Housing Scheme, East Coast Demerara, where the escaped prisoner is originally from. The search did not bear any fruit.
When questioned, the other prisoners who shared the cell with the escaped teenager claimed that they knew nothing of his escape, as they were asleep when he sprang from the lockups.
Residents of the area surrounding the Turkeyen Police Station said that they thought that all of the police ranks at the station must have also been sleeping, for the teenager to escape without anyone knowing.
The Turkeyen Police Station is considered to be quite new, being commissioned only in 2007 by the Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee.
The juvenile prisoner had previously turned himself into police custody for the murder of 22-year-old cane cutter Dexroy Dodson in September last year.
Dodson’s body was discovered by his father, Marlon McKenzie, when he (McKenzie) heard his son’s mobile phone ringing from a nearby clump of bushes, just metres from his yard. Closer examination resulted in the discovery of Dodson’s body.
It is believed that Dodson was brutally stabbed in his chest and desperately tried to make it home, but only made it across a small drain which runs in front of his house.
This jailbreak comes just after Rohee had chided police ranks that he saw the need for more attention to be paid to the supervision of the lockups in various police stations. “Too many prisoners have been escaping from police custody, and too many incidents have been occurring at police lockups. This situation needs remedial action,” said Rohee.
Last year, there were numerous jailbreaks, most notably on June 25, when Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles managed to escape from the Sparendaam Police Station lockups by slipping through a hole in the floor of the lockups.
Skinny, along with Rondell ‘Fine Man’ Rawlins, had wreaked havoc and mayhem until their demise at Kuru Kururu on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway.
Share this:
Discover more from Kaieteur News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.