Murder near a melon farm

Nov 08, 2015 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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By Michael Jordan
There are at least three people who know for sure what happened six years ago at Number 63 Beach, Corentyne. One of them is a girl named Susan Hernandez. The second is a mysterious killer. The third is a former New Amsterdam Multilateral School student named Vivian Singh Balrup. He’s the victim in this story.

His father, Kirpaul Singh Balrup, doesn’t believe he’s being told the entire truth about how Vivian was killed, and on the sixth anniversary of his son’s death, he is still trying to find out who murdered his boy, and why.
What Mr. Balrup has been told is that on Sunday November 8, 2009, a taxi stopped at the family’s Reliance, East Canje home. Vivian then asked his mother to allow him to accompany his cousin, Mark Persaud, to Number 63 beach. She was reluctant to let him go, but eventually relented.
Mark Persaud, the cousin, confirmed that they were joined by two girls. One of them was 15-year-old Susan Hernandez. The taxi driver then took the friends to Number 63 beach. Persaud also confirmed that they then passed near to a fenced watermelon farm, and that Vivian went into the farm and picked two watermelons.
One version of this story is that Vivian was reluctant to enter the property but the taxi driver persuaded him to, and even lifted the barbed wire to let him slip through.
After eating some of the fruit, Persaud said that he and Vivian went to the waterside to wash their hands.
According to Persaud, Vivian and Susan Hernandez then walked off together, while he, his girlfriend and the driver remained by the car.
Mark said that he then asked the man to borrow his car. The driver consented and Persaud, accompanied by his girlfriend, drove along Number 63 Beach. But the ride ended abruptly when the vehicle got stuck.
Some five minutes later the driver called Persaud on his cell phone to enquire about his whereabouts, and Persaud explained his predicament. The cousin claims that after about 30 minutes, the driver and two men in a gold-coloured AT 192 drove up. They were accompanied by Susan Hernandez, who was bleeding. There was no sign of Vivian Balrup.
According to Persaud, Susan alleged that she and Vivian Balrup were sitting under a coconut tree when someone came up and struck him. She reportedly said that the same person then struck her, causing her to fall.
Persaud alleged that Susan Hernandez said she managed to get up and run away, while the man continued to strike Vivian Balrup.
Police reports on the incident state that Susan Hernandez said that the attacker struck her and Balrup with a length of bamboo.
According to Mark Persaud, he had said they should all go to check on Balrup, but the taxi driver insisted that they would have to wait until his car was unstuck. He said that the driver and his two friends in the gold-coloured car went to a nearby residence and borrowed a tractor, which they used to pull out the stuck vehicle. They then went to the area where Vivian Balrup and Susan Hernandez had been attacked.
Persaud said that Balrup was lying on the ground in a semi-conscious state. Reportedly, on the taxi driver’s suggestion, they took the unconscious youth to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
Kirpaul Singh Balrup, the victim’s father, said he first learnt about his son’s injury when Mark Persaud’s sister contacted him by phone to say that Vivian had been struck on the head and was being taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
When he arrived at the hospital his son was bleeding profusely from injures to the head, but no doctor was present. He said that his son was being transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation when he passed away.
Mr. Balrup is puzzled that the driver had taken his son to the New Amsterdam Hospital rather than the Skeldon Hospital, which was much closer. He said that after his son’s demise, the police questioned the two girls and his nephew, Mark Persaud, at the New Amsterdam Police Station.
According to him, Susan Hernandez, who had witnessed the attack, telephoned him and said: ‘Uncle, I will tell you everything.’ But Mr. Balrup said that he was so distraught at the time that he told her to talk to the police instead. It’s a decision he said he will forever regret.
The information that investigators had collected led then to believe that Vivian Balrup and Susan Hernandez were attacked by someone on the watermelon farm that Vivian had entered.
Four watermelon farmers from the Number 63 beach area were detained but then released after Hernandez failed to identify any of them as the attacker.
Mr. Balrup is convinced that some persons are not telling the entire truth about the circumstances that led to his son’s death. He is puzzled as to how a bamboo stick could have caused the injuries that his son sustained. He also noted that there were no injuries on his son’s arms to indicate that he had tried to ward off the blows.
Mr. Balrup is certain that the watermelon farmers did not kill his son. He also doesn’t believe that robbery was a motive, since his son still had his cell phone, gold chain, watch and $8,000 in his possession when he was found.
And the still distraught man has a few theories of his own. One of these is that someone who might have been jealous about his son’s popularity with females inflicted the fatal blows. He believes that there are persons other than the killer and Susan Hernandez who witnessed the attack.
“The beach is always packed with people, and from what I understand, on that day in question, a lot of people were on the beach. I think that people see, but they afraid to come forward and talk to the police. I am pleading with anyone who knows what happened to come to me. It would be confidential.”

If you have any information about any 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]

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