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Two years later… Slain minibus driver’s killer still walking freely
Sunday last marked two years since Rupert Randolph Gill was stabbed to death at Parfaite Harmonie on the West Bank of Demerara.
And from the way things are going, his murder appears to be one of the many cold cases that are haunting investigators of the Guyana Police Force.
At least his wife, Debra, and her three children think so, since there appears to be little effort on the part of the police to apprehend his killer, Ricky Gonsalves.
Mrs Gill visited Kaieteur News last week and recounted the circumstances surrounding her husband’s death, which occurred on May Day 2009.
“I was at home and somebody told me that my husband get stab at the four corner.”
Rupert Gill
According to Mrs Gill, the stabbing stemmed from a dispute her husband had with the suspect over a DVD at the Route 31 Bus Park, a month earlier.
“My husband was in a shop and was just about to give a little girl a lollipop when this man come in from behind and stabbed him in his neck,” she said.
Gill’s relatives are convinced that his killer is still in the jurisdiction and they lament fact it is they who have been doing the investigative work with the hope of obtaining justice.
In fact, the only piece of satisfaction the family received was when the police searched a house in Riverview, Ruimveldt, where the suspect was living, shortly after the stabbing.
“They (police) met his wife and told her to call him. She did contact him and asked him where he was. I think he told her he was up the Bank,” Debra Gill told Kaieteur News.
The police enquired from the suspect’s wife about a photograph of him and she indicated that she did not have any.
At least that would have enabled them to issue a wanted bulletin.
What about identification card records? That is one of the questions that is being asked by Gill’s relatives.
But hope of catching the killer was not lost and there was another opportunity.
Although the suspect, who was known to be an itinerant DVD salesman, was not from West Bank Demerara, he would normally visit their community, Parfaite Harmonie, and Debra Gill and her children had seen him intermittently from time to time.
According to the dead man’s wife, although she does not really know the suspect, she is positive that she spotted him outside a popular city department store, recently.
“I saw him outside Fogarty’s last Christmas, but I did not know him too well. By the time I call my son to identify him, he had disappeared,” Debra Gill stated.
Then there was another time when the dead man’s relatives thought that they would get some justice after all.
They received information from the police at Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, that a man fitting the suspect’s description was spotted selling DVDs in that community.
However, when Gill’s son travelled to Mahaica, he found out that it was not the suspect.
Since then, Mrs Gill has spoken to Crime Chief Seelall Persaud with the hope of getting investigators to intensify their actions to apprehend the suspect.
“I feel the police have not done enough. There must be a photograph of him (suspect) somewhere.
At least if they publish a photograph of him people will see and inform where he is,” said Mrs Gill, noting that the police have been known to issue wanted bulletins with photographs of persons who are wanted for far lesser crimes than murder.
“Two years after his death Rupert Gill’s family misses him more and more every day, especially since there is a delay in obtaining justice for his murder.
“My children remember him every March on his birthday, while the guy must be walking free somewhere, looking at the police who apparently don’t even know him,” Debra Gill told Kaieteur News.
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