Latest update January 8th, 2025 4:30 AM
Latest News
- ‘Our Stabroek Block estimate is higher than Exxon’s 11B barrels figure’ – Hess CEO
- Exxon to focus on exploring and appraising more of Stabroek Block before licence expires in 2027 – Routledge
- ‘All hell will break out’ if Gaza hostages aren’t released’—Trump warns
- Chinese company sitting on US$16B worth of gold at Guyana’s Aurora Gold Mine
- Guyana records 60% increase in workplace deaths in 2024 – Labour Minister
A recipe for bloody murder
By Michael Jordan
Let’s get a 31-year-old widower. Mix him with a lonely, lovestruck married woman, add in a wealthy and jealous
Jadesh Dass
husband, and what do you get? A recipe for bloody murder.
Sounds like a silly riddle? It wouldn’t sound so silly to some folks at Chelsea Park, Mahaica. And it certainly wouldn’t sound so foolish to old Sookranie Dass. There are people from that village who have come right up to her and said that this is how her son got himself killed. Those folks have named names of men that Ms. Dass has known for most of her life.
At least, that is what elderly Ms. Dass is saying; and if the stories are true, her son was biting the hand that fed him, and that hand decided to bite back.
At around the time this story begins, Jadesh Dass had been working for about a year with a Mahaica businessman who owned several trucks. At around 1.00 a.m. on April 17, 2012, the 31-year-old truck driver left his mother’s Chelsea Park, Mahaica home on his bicycle to pick up a truck from his boss’s home. He then drove along the Mahaica New Road with the intention of heading to a sand pit along the Soesdyke/ Linden highway.
An hour later, Sookranie Dass was awakened by someone calling at her gate. The visitor was one of the truck drivers who worked with her son and he had brought troubling news. The driver said that he had passed Dass’s truck on the Mahaica New Road, near Unity. The truck was parked with the hazard lights on, and the man assumed that Dass had gone into the bushes to relieve himself.
According to the man, he had become worried after realising that the vehicle was still motionless and he decided to turn back to check on his colleague. After calling repeatedly and getting no answer, the driver eventually found Dass’s cell phone.
On hearing this, Ms. Dass and other relatives set off to search for the missing truck driver. They scoured the area near the parked truck; calling his name but getting now answer. Eventually, at around 2.00 a.m., they found Jadesh Dass’s body on the parapet near a trench. At first, police surmised that someone had clubbed him in the head with such force that bits of his skull were left on the parapet. But a post mortem revealed that Dass had been shot twice at close range with a handgun. One of the bullets entered near his right eye.
Almost immediately, detectives ruled out robbery. The slain man’s wallet was still in his pocket and $20,000 was in the truck. Some relatives suggested that Dass must have known his killer for him to have stopped his truck where he did and emerge from his vehicle.
So who had killed Jadesh Dass after making him stop on the desolate, unlit road?
Relatives at the murder scene
On the very day of Dass’s murder, detectives began to get hints as to who might have wanted him dead. Rumours were circulating that Dass, a widower, was having an affair with the wife of one of the men connected to the trucking company where he was employed. It was suggested that the jilted husband and others had carried out the attack.
Dass’s mother also said that her son had confided in an in-law about the affair. It was suggested that the married woman had made advances to her son. Dass’s mother said she was also told that the woman would sometimes contact her son by telephone and that she had given him $100,000 a few days before his death. Ms. Dass says that she knew the alleged lover, and she and the woman had lived “like family.” All that changed after the murder and subsequent investigation.
According to Ms. Dass, she had sensed that her son was worried about something. He had not confided in her, but had reportedly told others that someone had threatened him.
Acting on these rumours, detectives detained three men from the trucking firm. They questioned them, swabbed their hands for traces of gunpowder— and got nowhere. Police also questioned the slain driver’s alleged lover. She denied having an affair with Dass. They eventually released the three men on $100,000 bail each.
Ms. Dass isn’t very optimistic that her son’s killers will ever be caught.
“This can’t solve. When you go to the police, they say that you have to get evidence. People tell me what happen, but nobody want to go to the police.”
If you have any information about this or any other unusual case, please contact Kaieteur News by letter or telephone at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown offices. Our numbers are 22-58465, 22-58473 and 22-58458. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address [email protected].
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
The Horse Racing Authority Bill will solve nothing!
Peeping Tom… Kaieteur News- The Horse Racing Authority Bill of 2024, though ostensibly aimed at regulating horse racing... more
Forget Begging Rich Nations: Caribbean Countries Should Act to Save Themselves
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- It has long been evident that the world’s richest nations, especially those responsible... more
Weekend Cartoon
