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Police continue probe into officer’s ‘suicide’

Jul 10, 2010 News

– experts’ opinions differ

By Michael Jordan
Police officials have reportedly intensified their investigations into the deaths of Assistant Superintendant Ivelaw Murray and Constable Kelvin Shepherd, in the wake of an autopsy that revealed that Murray was shot twice in the head.
Kaieteur News understands that some senior officials from Georgetown are in Berbice and are preparing to speak with pathologist Dr. V. Bridgemohan about his findings.
But when asked if investigators were focusing on a possible double murder, ‘B’ Division Commander Steve Merai insisted that the police were still “conducting an investigation into a murder/suicide.”
What had appeared to be a cut and dried case turned into a puzzle on Wednesday, after an autopsy revealed that Murray had sustained two bullet wounds.
One of the bullets entered below the chin, and shattered his tongue and the roof of his mouth before exiting between the victim’s eyebrows. That bullet pierced the roof of the victim’s house.
Kaieteur News understands that Murray suffered some laceration to the brain from this gunshot.
The other wound was to the right temple and the bullet exited through the left temple.
Medical sources with experience in gunshot injuries are divided in their opinion as to whether the wounds were self-inflicted.
All the experts appear to agree that the gunshot to the temple would have killed Murray almost instantly.
“If the first shot was to the temple, there is no way that he could have got off the second shot, unless you get a reflex action, which is hardly likely,” one source said.
But opinions differed as to whether Murray could have shot himself again if he had first shot himself below the chin.
Some experts believe that this injury would have so incapacitated the officer that he would have been unable to fire his weapon a second time.
But one medical source opined that if the bullet had missed the brain, “the possibility exists” that Murray could have shot himself again.
“It’s not something that you see often, but it is possible,” the expert said.
Explaining that persons could survive for hours with such gunshot wounds, the medical official recounted an incident in which a man who was shot in the mouth bled to death some three hours later.
“I also got a case where a man was shot in the nose. The bullet lodged behind the eye and he could not remember being shot.”
He died before undergoing surgery.
Medical data show that there have been cases of multiple gunshot suicides.
Some of the data stated that “multiple gunshot suicides engender controversy because of the popular misconception that it is impossible for an individual to inflict more than one gunshot upon themselves.
Because of this many are associated with conspiracy theories, which hold that those individuals actually were the victims of a homicide.
“Forensic medicine has discovered, however, that suicides by firearm involving multiple gunshots, although uncommon, are by no means rare; as many as eight percent of suicides by firearm involve multiple gunshots. “Suicides involving as many as six self-inflicted gunshots have been documented in the literature.”
Initial investigations had indicated that Murray committed suicide at his home after shooting Constable Kelvin Shepherd with his .38 service revolver in the barrack room of the Springlands Police Station.
Police had received reports that the two were heard arguing shortly before Shepherd was slain.
While no clear motive has surfaced, Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene, had told reporters on Wednesday that the two ranks had shared an “inappropriate” relationship.
However, Murray’s close relatives have dismissed the reports, and also insist that he did not take his own life.

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