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Guyanese grandpa beaten, killed in Florida home
Lehigh Acres, Florida, USA — A grandfather was doused with bleach and beaten
Hemchand Bhagwandin (inset) was found dead in his home.
before being killed in his own home.
Intruders entered the home of Hemchand Bhagwandin, 68, and his wife, Sabitree Bhagwandin, 66, while they were babysitting their 3-month-old granddaughter Sunday night, according to Lee County Sheriff’s Office investigators. Sabitree Bhagwandin was injured but released from a hospital Monday.
The child was not injured. Police have not released a motive in the death.
“It is shocking to the community,” said Chan Seelochan, 65, of Naples, Florida, who is a cousin of Hemchand Bhagwandin. “It is very difficult for (the daughters). He was very family oriented.”
Seelochan said the family originally emigrated from India to Guyana in South America, and then relocated to the United States years ago. Hemchand Bhagwandin was a retired auto mechanic in this Fort Myers, Fla., suburb of about 90,000 people.
Seelochan, who grew up in the same house in Guyana as his cousin, could not fathom what had happened.
“You come to the place for something different and then the unexpected happens,” he said. “Stuff that doesn’t happen in Third World countries happens here.”
Seelochan said Sabitree Bhagwandin is resting at the home of one of her daughters and is “very beaten up.”
The grandfather used to pick up his grandchildren from the school bus daily. Ironically, he said a son of the Bhagwandins was killed 25 years ago this month in LaBelle, Fla.
Although the couple appeared to live a quiet, family-oriented life, men believed to be their relatives have extended rap sheets.
Court records show Sabitree Bhagwandin was named as a third-party custodian in a 2008 case titled U.S.A. v. Bhagwandin involving a Vishwanand Bhagwandin accused of selling cocaine between May and September 2008. The relationship between Sabitree Bhagwandin and Vishwanand Bhagwandin is unclear.
Vishwanand Bhagwandin, 38, appears more than a dozen times in the Lee Clerk of Court case database, including a 1999 case for multiple counts of drug trafficking.
Another Bhagwandin, Shradhanand, was arrested in 2009 after he allegedly bought $25,000 worth of cocaine from an undercover sheriff’s deputy. His 2009 cocaine arrest resulted in two felony trafficking charges.
A neighbour of the Bhagwandins, John Shelley, said Hemchand Bhagwandin loved riding his bike to the store for lottery tickets and would drive a golf cart to pick up his grandchildren from the bus stop.
“There were sometimes a lot of kids there,” he said.
“He’d say ‘Call me Hem,’ “ Shelley said.”He was quiet and nice and hardly anybody ever heard anything from him.”
Shelley called it “mind-boggling” that someone would attack his neighbour with such ferocity.
“He never hurt anybody,” Shelley said.
Deputies responded to the home around 11:30 p.m. ET Sunday, said Lt. Jeff Dektas, public information officer for the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. The crime does not appear to be because of the victims’ lifestyle, simply two grandparents watching their granddaughter.
Deputies continue to investigate, and they are looking for multiple suspects.
“This is the type of crime that infuriates us at the sheriff’s office,” he said.
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