The Monica Reece Murder Mystery….Part Three: A cover-up and a possible killer

Apr 16, 2017 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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By Michael Jordan
“One of these days, I gun tell you something about Monica Reece that gun shock you,” the

senior police official said to me.
It was Monday, December 27, 1993, eight months after Reece had been murdered, and this policeman, who had at one point been at the forefront of the investigation, was about to tell me something new.
We were on Mandela Avenue, collecting bottled water at Banks DIH Limited, and I had gotten him started on Reece after bringing the case up.
He had hinted something to me before, when we—the police and the media—were following the Reece case like we had never pursued a case before or since.
To use a term Commissioner Laurie Lewis was fond of using, the police appeared to be “leaving no stone unturned” to catch Reece’s killer.

BRUTAL BEATING
Forensic pathologist Dr. Leslie Mootoo’s detailed autopsy report had established that Reece had suffered a savage beating, which left her with a broken jaw and other injuries, before she was unceremoniously dumped in Main Street.
The autopsy also showed that she had sexual intercourse some hours before she was slain.
Going further, Dr. Mootoo collected pubic and other hair samples from Reece’s remains.
These, and samples from the pickups police had impounded, were reportedly sent overseas.
Several weeks after she was killed, Reece’s body was exhumed and more samples taken. These, too, were reportedly sent overseas.
The results, according to police, were all “inconclusive,” leaving detectives no closer to catching the killer.
And some would argue, and some did, that Reece’s lifestyle made it harder for the investigators to pin down who that killer might be.
A detailed investigation revealed that the pretty 19-year-old security guard had several dates on the Good Friday on which she was slain.
David McKenzie, operations manager of the Loss Prevention Guard Service, said that at around 13:00 hrs on Good Friday, he visited Reece at the Ministry of Health in Brickdam, where she was detailed to work.
According to McKenzie, Reece said that if a man called ‘Mark’ called for her at the office, he must tell ‘Mark’ to take lunch to her worksite.
Reece also told McKenzie about her relationship with a man who drove a 4×4 pickup, whom she claimed was in love with her.
McKenzie claims she also handed him a piece of paper with several names and a telephone

number. The security official told investigators that he remembered the name ‘Mark’ on the paper, but he could not recall the telephone number or what he had done with the paper Reece had given him.
McKenzie later dropped Reece on his bicycle to a phone booth at Regent and Hinck Streets. That was the last time he saw her alive.
Between 16:40 hrs and 17:00 hrs, Reece informed Mark Torrington, a security guard, that she had a date with a Chinese man from McDoom. She told him not to be surprised if he heard she was dead.
At 18:30 hrs she left Kalian Yard at Lot 240 Camp Street. She had changed out of her security uniform and was wearing a white T-shirt and black tights.
At 19:15 hrs she was seen by Special Constable Linden Samuels entering the Brickdam Police Station compound. She was allegedly crying, and about five minutes later she was seen entering a black Pathfinder parked near the station.
At around 20:30 hrs she visited Charles McAllister, a driver, at a Church Street disco. She reportedly left, returned, and then walked west along Church Street.
At about 22:05 hrs, an eyewitness saw Reece’s body falling out of a pickup in Main Street.
At least 27 pick-ups were impounded by police and 200 persons were questioned.
But all this brought the cops no closer to solving the case.
Police also announced a $100,000 reward for information on Reece’s killer.
There were no takers.

SPECULATION APLENTY
Commissioner Laurie Lewis and some other investigators complained that the media speculation about who the killer was, and why Reece was slain, was scaring away eyewitnesses.
And speculation aplenty there was. One of the stories was that Reece might have been killed because of her knowledge of a 117-pound cocaine bust on a Guyana Airways Corporation plane in the US in March of the same year.

Then there was the sudden demise of a street character named ‘Tourist.’
‘Tourist’ used to hang out in Main Street and he died a few days after Monica Reece. There was speculation in some sections of the press that he was slain because he knew who had killed Reece and had been talking too much.
The police insisted that ‘Tourist’, who was suffering from tuberculosis, died of natural causes. One senior officer feels that the stress of seeing Reece’s dumped body caused ‘Tourist’ to collapse.
Despite the Commissioner’s pleas, there was also speculation in the press about the killer’s identity.
Some suggested that she was killed by a rich city businessman’s son, and some stories suggested that he could be identified because his pickup made a distinctive noise.
Others speculated that she had been beaten to death with a baseball bat by the owner of a city disco.
Reporters were even going into Tiger Bay at night digging for clues.

COVER UP?
In the presence of their colleagues, police investigators would insist that they did everything they could to catch the killer. But those who confided in me said they were unhappy with some aspects of the investigation.
Some detectives felt that too much information was being fed to the media at the Commissioner’s monthly press conferences. Others felt that some superior officers were deliberately leading them “in another direction” when they came forward with what seemed to be clues leading to the culprit.
One of the investigators confirmed that there was a persistent rumour that a son of a very senior police official might have driven the pick-up from which Reece was dumped. The investigator says that this lead was checked out and the official’s son was cleared.
The first official statement indicating that someone had indeed tampered with the investigation came in August 2016, after the 23-year-old cold case was re-opened.
It was then that Acting Police Commissioner David Ramnarine told journalists that “an unprofessional course of action” took place during the initial investigation.
He repeatedly refused to identify who was responsible for this “unprofessional” action.
Shortly after, one senior investigator told me that a number of obstacles were put in the way of detectives to make it difficult for them to nab Reece’s killer.
“A number of things obstructed us,” he told me last year. “It was never intended for it to be a straightforward investigation. Where the obstruction came from, I don’t know, but there are some who knew where the obstruction came from.”
But retired Commissioner of Police Winston Felix, who was Crime Chief back then, says he knows of no individual who had deliberately hampered the investigation.
According to Felix, investigators “went as far as we could,” but intervention by the media caused a key witness to go into hiding.
“We had a certain witness that we wanted to interview…the person who could have helped us. But certain media houses staked out the (eyewitness’) house, and the person disappeared. We could not put our hands on the eyewitness from then to now. We had a certain idea (about the killer’s identity), but we had to have evidence to link (the suspect).”
Some senior police officers expressed the view that valuable time and resources were being wasted on a case involving a female of Reece’s character.
Some months after Reece was murdered, I appeared with a few journalists and Reece’s mother, on a television talk show which highlighted the unsolved case.
A few days later, I was ‘invited’ to CID Headquarters, Eve Leary, by an official who wanted to know if I had any helpful information. I said I did not.
Now, this was one of the officials who was very unhappy with the media’s scrutiny, and he said something that startled me.
“You know this is a solved case?” he said.
But he said nothing more.
Then we had this chance meeting on December 27 on the West Ruimveldt ‘back road,’ where we had both gone to purchase bottled water.
“Anything new on Monica Reece?” I asked.
The official sucked his teeth and said: “I wish we could just forget she and bury she. When you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”
“But it’s a human being,” I replied.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And y’all want we fuh clean up the mess she lef behind. One of these days, I gun tell you something about Monica Reece that gun shock you.”
And he proceeded to tell me his theory about what had happened that Good Friday night.
His belief is that the Reece case is no murder. He believes Reece was having an affair with a married man, or a man who had another woman. He thinks that Reece was pestering this individual and during an argument, she accidentally fell out of his pickup and succumbed to her injuries.
He would tell me nothing about the man’s identity. We never spoke again about the case.
I put forward the official’s theory to one of the detectives who had initially spearheaded the investigation. He insists that Dr. Mootoo’s autopsy shows that Reece was beaten to death and succumbed before she was dumped from the pick-up.

WHO KILLED MONICA REECE?
So who killed Monica Reece?
Detectives believe that the man whose pick-up seems to match the numbers June Holland saw, is their suspect. One investigator says despite his denials, there is evidence that he knew Reece. The investigator laughs, but does not confirm or deny suggestions that some persons tried to protect this individual.
And to this day, I find myself asking: Did he really kill Monica Reece? What drove him to this brazen act? Does he sometimes feel a tinge of remorse, or even a stab of dread, when he passes through Main Street, or if he sees someone resembling her, or if someone mentions her name?
But in my heart I believe that he just thinks: I killed a woman…dumped her in a public street over two decades ago. Try all you want. You can’t touch me…
As I write this, another Good Friday has just passed with Reece’s killer still at large. But something tells me that time is catching up with him.
I imagine writing this, perhaps before next Good Friday:
“After 24 years, the veil appears to have finally lifted on one of the nation’s most intriguing cold cases, and the identity of a killer may now be known.
“In a stunning development last night, detectives detained a member of a prominent business family for the Good Friday Night 1993 murder of Monica Reece…”
I want to see his face when this happens.

If you have any further information on this case or any other, please contact us at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown office or by telephone.

We can be reached on telephone numbers 22-58458, 22-58465, or 22-58491. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address: [email protected].

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