Was this Good Friday killing a curse on the nation?

Jul 18, 2016 News

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Those who are strongly religious, those who are superstitious, may say that to do a foul deed on one of the holiest of days, is to bring down the wrath of God on yourself, and perhaps on your nation.
Some may say that this is exactly what had befallen Guyana.
Call it the hand of God, call it coincidence, but the brazen murder of Monica Reece on the Good Friday of April, 1993, has been followed by a spate of heinous crimes that hasn’t abated after 23 years.
In December, 1993, Charlestown resident Marlon De Abreu, was at the Hollywood Disco in Regent Street in 1993 when he was confronted by another man who shot him dead.
The suspect, identified as Maxwell Melville, called ‘Lunkie’, fled the scene in a pickup, which was later found abandoned. ‘Lunkie’ was nabbed a few years later in Brazil. However, he escaped from the Georgetown Prison and remains at large.
In January 8, 1994, four men forced their way into the Prashad Nagar home of 27-year-old, cambio dealer Lloyd Bacchus.
While some of the men held other occupants at gunpoint, the others entered Bacchus’ bedroom and shot him behind the neck, killing him instantly.
It later emerged that Bacchus had spearheaded one of the largest ‘backtrack’ rings in the country.
Charging a reported US$10,000 a client, the Bacchus ring, allegedly aided by Immigration and airport personnel, smuggled about ten clients a week to the United States and Canada.
The relatives of clients who failed to pay up were sometimes threatened and even abducted.
The US Embassy later revealed that it had revoked Bacchus’ visa because of his connection to alien smuggling.
On February 25, 1994, several heavily-armed men broke into the Herstelling, East Bank Demerara home of cambio dealer Herman Sanichar.
They riddled Sanichar with bullets and wounded his wife.
Police said that the gunmen left large sums of money untouched when they fled.
In an interview with then Chronicle Editor in-Chief Adam Harris some two years before his execution, Sanichar had confirmed that he was detained in the US for money laundering.
But he had refuted reports that he was also held for drug trafficking.
In March 1995, former police constable Howard Cummings was shot dead in South Ruimveldt. Cummings was dismissed from the Guyana Police Force after it was discovered that he and other policemen were going on unsanctioned raids at drug houses to steal cocaine.
In December 28, 1998, gunmen ambushed 30-year-old Watooka residents Roger Bristol and his pregnant reputed wife, Candace Wilson outside their West Watooka, Linden home.
Bristol was shot in the back of the head, shoulder and side.
Candace Wilson’s body was found lying behind the house, shot at close range behind the ear.
Police investigations suggested that the killing of the couple was linked to the murder of 18-year-old Montouth King, whose nude body was found in the vicinity of Millie’s Hideout, an old nightclub just outside Amelia’s Ward.
His head was shaven, his throat had been slit, and he had been shot in the head.
On January 14, 1999, the battered body of 49-year-old Chronicle computer operator Veeran Veerapen was found near Madewini Creek. It is suspected that Veerapen was slain by backtrack operators who had sought his services.
On Emancipation Day August 1, 2003, minibus operators Lennox Baker, 45, and Ron Baker, 34, stopped briefly at Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo, for a passenger to disembark.
Reports say that after dropping off the passenger opposite a bus shed, an unidentified man in a white car indicated that he had passengers for the bus.
It is alleged that two men came out of the car with guns drawn and fired at the bus, mortally wounding both brothers and injuring a passenger.
The brothers’ close relatives alleged that police ranks had executed the men, a claim that the police strongly refuted.
Drugs appeared to be the motive when the bullet-riddled bodies of Daniel Marcus, 41, Richard Thomas, 33, a farmer of 164 Smythfield, New Amsterdam and Daniel Sylvester Brown, a Jamaican, were found at a marijuana farm at Swan, off the Soesdyke/Linden Highway on September 17, 2003.
Sylvester Brown, called ‘Dandy’, was shot in the chest, Thomas was shot in the right side of the head while Marcus as shot in the left breast.
A number of execution-style killings also occurred at sea.
On October 12, 2007, a fishing trawler, the Captain Jewel, with its six-man crew, departed from the Meadow Bank wharf, with the intention of fishing between Guyana and Suriname.
But after setting sail, the vessel and crew disappeared.
In late October, the decomposed bodies of three of the crew were found in the Corentyne River.
Two of the dead men were bound hands and feet.
The victims were identified as Patrick Parboo, 20, the captain; Mahendra Gangadin, called ‘Bready’ of Annandale Sand Reef, both of East Coast Demerara and 29-year-old Mark Sylvester Persram, called ‘Buddy’ of Good Hope, East Coast Demerara.
Still missing are the captain’s 20-year-old brother, Navinda Gangadin, called ‘Dar’; Davindra Persaud, 21 and Christopher Rooplall, 20.
The ill-fated Captain Jewel has never been found.
In March, 2009, the bullet-riddled bodies of Romeo De Agrella, 41, and his son, Clint De Agrella, 21, of Grant Hope, Pomeroon, were found at Shell Beach in the Barima-Waini Region.
Their boat, which also bore bullet holes, was also found but the vessel’s 250 horsepower engine was missing.
The two men were reportedly slain while heading home from a trip to Venezuela.
Romeo De Agrella was the uncle of Rudolph Da Silva, one of three men who turned up dead in Suriname waters in 2007.
In December 2007, the bodies of Guyanese, Paul Da Silva, Rudolph Da Silva and Junior Gomez, were found in Suriname after they had left for a trip to Venezuela, where they had operated a passenger boat service earlier that month. Police believe that the killings were drug-related.
And who can forget the killings during the 2003 to 2008 ‘crime wave?’
So, will this ‘curse’ be broken if the Monica Reece case is solved?

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