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Hijacked taxi driver…Suspects lead cops to body in Parika canefield
The search for abducted taxi driver Dhanraj Latchman ended at around 19.30 hrs yesterday, after two teens suspected of killing him led police to a Parika, East Bank Essequibo canefield where they had dumped his body two days ago.
Hijacked taxi driver…Suspects lead cops to body in Parika canefield
Police said that the suspects, aged 18 and 17, confessed under intense interrogation to strangling 17-year-old Latchman with the seatbelt of his car, after hiring him last Wednesday to take them from Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, to Parika.
The alleged killers also revealed that they had planned to sell the slain driver’s car.
Accompanied by ranks from A and B Divisions, the teenage suspects yesterday led the detectives to a desolate area some four miles off the East Bank Essequibo public road.
Within minutes, detectives found Latchman’s decomposed and apparently battered remains in a nearby canefield. Some of the slain man’s relatives were present but were not allowed to see the body.
Police detained the teens on Thursday morning after Latchman’s mother, Lynette Daby, informed ranks that her son had called the names of his two passengers, who reside a short distance away from their home.
Initially, the suspects had given investigators conflicting reports regarding their last encounter with Latchman. They eventually admitted that they strangled the teen and had planned to sell his white Toyota AT 212, bearing registration number, PMM 9823.
“It seems that they had their eyes on this man’s car for some time now, and after they found a buyer, they hired him (Latchman) and told him they were going to collect money at Parika,” a source close to the investigation told Kaieteur News.
But the deal between the suspects and their buyer reportedly fell through after police found the missing vehicle at Parika. Kaieteur News understands that one of the alleged killers had once lived in the area where the suspects had stashed the car.
At the scene yesterday, a number of persons gathered at the location to get a glimpse of the two men. Some of them shouted, “give we them, we gone deal with them.”
Latchman’s grief-stricken father, Ramnarace Latchman said that his wife was unaware that the body had been found.
According to the mother, the now dead Latchman was at the family’s Lusignan, East Coast Demerara home last Wednesday afternoon when he suddenly informed her that he was going to Parika to transport passengers.
“About five o’clock I called my son and asked him where he was and he said that he in Parika. I called him again around eight o’clock and he said that he was still at Parika and he leaving just now, so I asked him who he with, and he called their names,” Lynette Daby said.
“He recently get his licence, so I does call him steady to make sure everything is okay with him,” the mother had informed this newspaper.
According to the woman, after Latchman failed to return home around 22:00hrs, she and her husband went to the homes of the men who her son had left to transport.
“When we went to one of them house, he didn’t want to come out, his mother had to force him to come out and when he did, he say that he don’t know where my son is, and then he say that my son left to go Enmore,” the mother said.
This is just one recent case in which teens have been implicated in the murder of taxi drivers.
Last January, a group of youths were charged with killing Pegasus taxi driver Rudranauth Jeeboo and dumping his body in Caneview Avenue, South Ruimveldt.
Some of the suspects were also implicated in the murder of taxi driver Raphael Campbell. The 30-year-old Campbell of Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara, was shot in the head and his body dumped at Liliendaal.
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