The pastor with a sordid past

Jan 25, 2015 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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– Is this unsolved murder a revenge killing?

By Michael Jordan

It was close to 30 years after his wife’s murder that the killers paid Pastor Motielall Persaud a visit.
They say it was raining heavily that Saturday night of July 30, 2011, when Persaud, known as ‘Brother Martin’, closed his internet café at Lot 22

Armadale.
He then entered his car and drove to his home at Lot 36 Railway Dam, Bush Lot, West Coast Berbice. Arriving there at around 22:00 hrs, the 51-year-old climbed his stairs.
Perhaps it was the heavy downpour that prevented Pastor Persaud from realizing that he was not alone, that two men, reportedly masked and clothed in black, were hiding nearby.
The Pastor was just opening his door when the men pounced…
At around 22:05, Persaud’s brother-in-law, Roopchand, who was also his next-door neighbour, heard an unusual noise.  On peering outside, the brother-in law saw the pastor struggling with two men. One was choking Persaud.
During the struggle, Persaud managed to scream out to his brother-in-law that he was being robbed. He then managed to break free from his attackers and open a gate that separated his yard from his brother-in-law’s.
The pastor then fled for his life to the brother-in-law’s backyard, where the men caught up with him. Although the pastor put up a fierce fight, the men stabbed him repeatedly about the body.
Roopchand alerted his neighbours who then called the police.
When they arrived, they found Persaud lying in his brother-in-law’s backyard, bleeding profusely from wounds about his body.
He managed to tell his brother-in-law that the men had made off with his cell phone before succumbing.
The keys to the house were found in the yard and blood stains were still evident in the grass when I visited the scene.
Persaud was the sole occupant of the home at the time since his wife, Geeta and six-month-old son, MJ had left for vacation in Trinidad.
Checking back further on Persaud’s movements that night, police learned that he had been among family and friends hours prior to his death. One of his relatives said that Persaud had joined with them that Saturday afternoon at Cotton Tree. Persaud had hugged and kissed them before leaving at about 18:30 hrs.
Detectives scoured the dead pastor’s house but found that it was not ransacked and from all appearances the men had not entered. This suggested that Persaud’s killers had not intended to rob him.
Persaud’s wife, Gita Persaud, also said that her spouse had no enemies.
“He was such a loving person; he got along with everybody. He brought so much happiness into our lives.”
The couple had been married for eight years.
So who could have wanted ‘Pastor Martin’ dead? A week before his death, his fellow worshippers at the Bush Lot Assemblies of God Church had elected him to be the Assistant Pastor.
A possible motive emerged a few days later.
It turned out that he had not always been ‘Pastor Martin.’
Back in the nineteen seventies, Motielall Persaud had lived in the Bronx, New York, at 161 St and Walton Avenue, in a building housing several Guyanese.
He was also married, but the relationship soured and the two separated. However, it is alleged that the spouse would still visit Persaud to collect money from him.
It is alleged that sometime around 1986, Martin gave his spouse a large sum of money. She reportedly returned the next week and demanded more. However, Persaud and his wife reportedly got into an argument over her relationship with another man.
In a fit of rage, Persaud strangled her and dumped the body in a garbage dumpster and later pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 15 years at Ossining Prison. After 12 years, he was released on good behaviour and deported.
On his return to Guyana, Persaud remarried and settled down in Berbice. According to reports, he turned to rice farming and poultry rearing, while also operating an internet café.
He also served as deputy pastor for an Assemblies of God Church.
In a letter to Kaieteur News, one of his friends said: “He had paid his debt to society and was fully redeemed. Why, would anyone want to avenge for that long dead ex-wife from 25-years ago? Another murder to avenge for an earlier one takes us back to the medieval age. The police have a responsibility to find Martin’s killers. Every angle of this murder should be investigated. The knife-stabbing killers must be tracked down not so much for Martin but for a civil way of life in Guyana. We cannot have people running around killing others. The Guyana police should solve Martin’s murder quickly – or else risk turning Guyana into a haven for revenge killings.”
But more than three years later, the murder of ‘Brother Martin’ remains unsolved.

If you have any information about other unusual cases, please contact Kaieteur News at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown location. We can be reached on telephone numbers 225-8465, 225-8491 or 225-8473. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address [email protected]

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