Taxi driver’s bullet-riddled body dumped on Thomas Lands

Aug 29, 2012 News

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Police have launched a hunt for the killers of 25-year-old taxi driver, Sean De Freitas Sookdeo, whose bullet riddle body was discovered early yesterday morning on Thomas Lands, near the National Park.
The discovery was made around 06:00 hours by early morning joggers who subsequently informed the police.
No motive for the killing, which bore all the hallmarks of an execution, has been established so far.
But police have almost ruled out robbery as the motive since there are reports that the taxi driver was lured to his death by persons he knew well.

His Toyota 212 motor car was found in front of his sister’s yard at McDoom, East Bank of Demerara where he had apparently parked it on Monday night. His passport was found on his person and this led to his swift identification by investigators.
Sookdeo’s body bore gunshot wounds to the head, hands and abdomen and according to reliable police sources close to the investigation, Sookdeo who hails from Lot 6 Block CC Mon Repos on the East Coast of Demerara, appeared to have been tortured also.
The source said that there were what appeared to be burns to his neck and abdomen.
Investigators are searching their records with the hope of establishing what might have led to Sookdeo’s death.
A police source on the East Coast of Demerara told Kaieteur News that Sookdeo is known to them, although he has never been charged with any criminal offence.
For his mother, Sandra Sookdeo, and other relatives, including his wife and daughter, his death is more than a shock.
Mrs. Sookdeo said that while she does not know of any reason why persons would want to kill her son, she had repeatedly warned him about the dangers of his job as a taxi driver.
The woman said that Sunday night was the last time she saw her son who had recently moved to live with his wife and daughter in the city.
Incidentally, the dead taxi driver was scheduled to take his wife and daughter to the airport early yesterday morning and when he did not return home on Monday night, the family became worried.
Sookdeo told this newspaper that she received a telephone call from her daughter-in-law at around 00:30 hours, informing her that her son had not come home as planned.
A call to his cellular phone was met by a recording that the instrument was in use but subsequent calls later found that it was turned off.
As desperation began setting in, Sookdeo called her daughter who lives at McDoom to see if he was there. The daughter reported that she had seen the taxi driver earlier Monday afternoon but did not make contact with him after.
“I say aright, I gone pray. I keep calling his wife on the phone asking she if she hear anything and she say no.”
Although alarm bells were ringing in her ears, Mrs. Sookdeo refused to believe that something terrible had happened to her son and she convinced herself that he had deliberately turned off his phone.
But what happened next sent shockwaves through her body.
A friend contacted her via telephone and enquired if she was all right.
“I say… “How you mean if I aright?” He say, Sister Carol, you sure you aright? Something happen to Sean.””
The friend went on to tell her that her son was involved in an accident and told her where his body was.
The mother told this newspaper that while she was on her way to the scene, she got another call from her pastor who instructed her to go to the Lyken Funeral Parlour instead since the body had already been removed.
It was only after arriving at the parlour that the woman learnt that her son was not really involved in a vehicular accident but was the victim of a brutal execution.
“I don’t know what happened, I don’t know what transpired but when I went and see him he had gunshot wounds on his body,” Sookdeo said.
She said that she later learnt that her son had parked his car outside his sister’s residence unknown to her.
“His wife told me that somebody called him earlier on the phone and he told them to meet him at the gas station in McDoom. So when my daughter wake up, she call me and tell me that she see he car park outside by her place, so I don’t know what happened. He probably went with somebody that he knows well or he would not have gone with them,” the woman insisted.
For her and the rest of the family, the month of August will forever bear significance since it is also in this month that they lost another close relative under similar circumstances.
Six years ago, her brother, Mark Maikoo, was among the five Kaieteur News pressmen who were senselessly slaughtered by a marauding gang at the company’s Eccles, East Bank Demerara location.
Sandra Sookdeo had a message for her son’s killer or killers.
“Whoever did this to my son, let them realize that God is watching and the way that they killed him was not right. Their turn is coming.”

Server Wednesday: sean sookdeo
Caption: Sean  De Freitas Sookdeo

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