Latest update November 21st, 2024 1:00 AM
Elderly man’s body fished out of Sussex Street canal
Dead: 79 year-old Victor Alexander Austin
– relatives suspect hit and run accident
Early yesterday morning, the body of a man was pulled from the Sussex Street canal with what appeared to be bruises as he was clinging to his bicycle.
Persons passing along Sussex Street in the vicinity of Callender Street spotted the man and informed the police.
As news of the body circulated, several persons converged at the location. One woman collapsed after she was made to believe that it was her father, despite not seeing the man’s face. Upon arrival at the scene the woman collapsed.
However, some time later another woman arrived on the scene and at first glance at the body the woman confirmed that the body was that of her father. She subsequently identified the remains as that of her 79 year-old father, Victor Alexander Austin.
The woman knew that it was her father because of the clothes he was wearing when she last saw him. At the time of the discovery, the man’s leg was still around his bicycle. One of the dead man’s children, Pamela Griffith, said that she last saw her father on Wednesday when she took him to be registered for his new identification card.
She said that the same evening she kept begging him not to ride the Sussex Street route to get to his D’Urban Street home. Griffith said her father kept insisting that the route was safe.
“He even joked about being robbed. He said, ‘Nobody would trouble me. I ain’t got nothing that they would want,’ but I keep telling him that the area is always dark…I even tell him that he is a hard ears big man,” Griffith said.
She said that her last moments with her father were spent trying to trace her ancestors from him.
“For some reason or the other I just kept asking him about his parents and grandparent and where they were from, and he gave all the information to me and I wrote it all down,” she said amidst tears.
She said Wednesday night was the last she saw her father alive, but she became worried on Thursday when she learnt from another relative that he never made it home.
Griffith said she decided to call his cellular phone but all her calls went straight to voice mail.
“That alone was a red flag for me so I got a friend and we went to every location where he would usually be at but we didn’t find him, we even went to the Georgetown Public Hospital but he never checked in,” the woman added.
It was until yesterday morning after receiving a telephone call from another relative about the body of a man being found on Sussex street she decided to go since she knew that was the route he would normally take. Her worst fears were confirmed when she arrived on the scene.
In the meantime, as police continue their investigations, relatives believe that the man may have been the victim of a hit and run accident. His body had several marks which appeared to be bruises and abrasions.
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