THE MONICA REECE MURDER MYSTERY

Apr 12, 2009 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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Does this ‘high society’ killing remain unsolved because of sloppy detective work, bad breaks that investigators had, media interference…or because someone deliberately let a suspect slip through their hands?

By Michael Jordan

I guess you want to know why I am dredging up a story about a woman who was killed and dumped in Main Street, 15 years ago.
I can hear you saying that there are worse horror stories, and you can list them too…‘Gurple’ beheaded in Agricola…two motorcyclists shot and burned to death in Albouystown…the chap that hit-man Axel Williams and his crew chased through the National Cultural Centre and executed on the tarmac.
And you would be right.

Because if Monica Reece had been killed between 2002 and 2008, her passing, I reckon, would have been a one-week media story.
So maybe I am bothering with Monica Reece because someone who feels they are above the law took it into their head to carry out this act on Good Friday.
Maybe it’s because of this, that this is one of those cases that stick in your head.
Maybe it’s because I feel, like many policemen of high and low rank, that this case should have been solved, and I can’t shake the feeling that her killer is out there laughing at all of us and saying: Look what I did on a public street and you can’t touch me.
So sit back. I am going to tell you all I know about this case, giving you information that was never released before.

I will tell you how close the cops came to holding the killer. I will tell you how the case got screwed up by the police, and maybe by the press also.
I will tell you about the suspects, stopping short of naming them. Then I will leave you to form your own conclusions.
I was a freelancer at the Chronicle back then on April 9, 1993, when police informed the media that someone had killed a 19-year-old female security guard named Monica Reece, and had thrown her body out of a pickup on Main Street, in the vicinity of where Geddes Grant used to be, and where the Courts main branch is presently.

The story fell into the hands of another senior journalist at the Chronicle.
Because of the break for the Good Friday holiday, the story did not appear until Sunday in the Stabroek News and the Chronicle
Neither of those dailies carried it as a headline story. Stabroek News, I think, carried it on their back page.
There were no pictures of the victim. Back then, reporters didn’t rush to people’s homes begging for photographs. All of that would change after the Monica Reece case.
There was something sickening about this body-dumping story and I was somewhat surprised at the offhand way that it was being treated in the media.
I decided to try to find out more.
First, I went to the Brickdam Police Station, where a detective told me that they had a description of the pickup from which Reece was thrown.
I then went to Main Street where the guys who sell their sculptures and other craft hang out. One of the chaps claimed that he was around when the 4×4 vehicle passed. Then he gave me a partial number.
“How did you observe that?” I asked.

“Old police,” he replied, meaning that he was an ex-cop.
I also learned that a cousin of Reece’s had written down the telephone number of a man who had called her on Good Friday (later– bad break).
I then went to CID Headquarters, Eve Leary.
A Homicide Division rank informed me that they had a suspect in custody and I spotted a dark-coloured pickup in the compound. I jotted the number down and returned to the Chronicle.
I told Chief Photographer Mike Norville what I had.

“Why you don’t try the Licence and Revenue Office?” he said.
I called, giving them the number of the vehicle in the CID compound.
A male staffer readily gave me the name of the vehicle owner.
I turned to Mike Norville, stunned.
“Is —–vehicle,” I said.

But I wanted more. I can’t recall who told me that ace Ray Rahaman was in Main Street on Good Friday night and had spotted the pickup.
Mr. Rahaman readily confirmed this information.
He hadn’t seen Reece’s body being thrown out, and told me that he had at first thought that it was a hit-and-run driver.
He attempted to pursue the driver, who was heading north down the western carriageway of Main Street.
According to Mr. Rahaman, he tried to pursue the driver, but the man managed to escape before he could catch up.

Rahaman said that he was too far behind to identify the occupant or the vehicle.
I then went to the East Street residence where Monica Reece’s mother lived.
Shirley Reece, her mother, readily supplied me with what information she had. She also gave me a photograph of a fair-complexioned girl, with a hand on one hip as she smiled into the camera.
It was the first picture that the public would see of Monica Reece.
I published the story with the satisfaction that a journalist feels when he knows that he has left his competition in the dust.

I felt that it was only a matter of days before the Police Commissioner would announce that the case had been solved.
I anticipated that Reece’s killer would appear in court and that his photograph would be splashed over the newspapers.
I have never been so wrong…

(To be continued)

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