Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
South Central murder…Cops seek hotel guest, victim’s stolen phone recovered
A former hotel guest appears to be the prime suspect in the murder of South Central proprietor Joseph ‘Joey’ Jagdeo, whose bound and gagged body was found in a room at his South Road premises last Thursday.
Kaieteur News understands that the man, known as ‘Big Foot’, had recently rented the room in which the slain proprietor was found. He is said to be the boyfriend of a woman who frequented the hotel.
Dead: Joseph Jagdeo
The man is believed to have stolen two cell phones from Jagdeo and Kaieteur News was told that police recovered one of the phones from a woman who resides in Kitty. The woman, who is in custody, has reportedly identified the former hotel guest as the individual who gave her the phone. However, police are still to locate the suspect.
They have since released about five other people from custody.
Police said that Government Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh conducted a postmortem yesterday on the victim which gave the cause of death as asphyxia due to manual strangulation.
Jagdeo, 62, was found under a bed in Room Ten at around 08:00 hrs on Thursday, after some employees, who had not seen him since the previous day, became concerned about his whereabouts.
An employee told Kaieteur News yesterday that the suspect, known as ‘Big Foot’, had been frequenting the premises for about two weeks. He had reportedly stayed in a room with his girlfriend.
This newspaper understands that on Tuesday, one of Jagdeo’s cell phones disappeared. The man’s girlfriend subsequently gave the hotel owner the phone and claimed that her boyfriend had stolen it. According to the employee, Jagdeo bought another cell phone and also informed the man that he would have to vacate the premises by Wednesday. Meanwhile, the man reportedly moved out of his girlfriend’s room and occupied room ten.
The employee told Kaieteur News that he last saw the proprietor sitting at his office desk on Wednesday morning. Later that day, the hotel guest reportedly informed the employee that he had spoken to Jagdeo and was leaving. The employee said that he later went up to the area where Jadgeo’s room is located and saw that the door was slightly ajar. He said that he called a few times, and left after receiving no response, since he assumed that his boss was sleeping.
But by nightfall, Jagdeo still had not appeared. The employee said that he also observed that room ten was locked but that the keys were missing.
At around 06:00 on Thursday, the employee said that he again went to check for his boss. This time, the man said that he observed that a pet cat that belonged to his missing boss was scratching at the bottom of the locked room ten.
Opening a louver window, the employee said that he looked into the room and saw the missing key. According to the man, he managed to snag the key with a length of wire. He said when he opened the door, the cat immediately ran into the room and went under the bed. Underneath, he saw his boss’s bound and gagged corpse. He then called the police.
A daughter of the slain man yesterday expressed concern that police had released the suspect’s girlfriend.
His wife, Faiza Hack, believes that robbery was the motive, but other sources said that Jagdeo only kept small sums of cash on the premises.
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