Cops pursuing prime suspect in Monica Reece investigation

Jan 29, 2018 News

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– person of interest being monitored, ordered to inform police of overseas travels

The detectives seemed to have everything: key witnesses, and a popular individual who they were so certain is the killer, that he had to tell them whenever he travelled overseas.
But yet the investigation into the heinous Good Friday murder of 19-year-old Monica Reece appears to have stalled once again.
Questions are now being asked as to, Why this is so?
“There is an individual that is being pursued and that is why the investigation was reopened,” a source told Kaieteur News, while quashing any suggestions that the case may have been compromised.
It was in July 2016, that former Crime Chief, Wendell Blanum revealed that police had reopened their investigations into the April 1993, Monica Reece murder.
On August 26, 2016, Acting Commissioner of Police David Ramnarine dropped another bombshell.
At a press conference, Ramnarine stated that “an unprofessional course of action took place at the time when the investigation was ongoing.”
The first review (of the case) revealed that an unprofessional course of action was taken in that year, and that period, when that matter was under investigation.”
However, the acting Top Cop had refused to be drawn into identifying the culprits.
The investigation was placed in the hands of the much vaunted Major Crimes Unit, whose ranks had solved several cold cases, including the killing of Babita Sarjou.

Kaieteur News understands investigators again went through the Reece file and also again questioned witnesses.
The information they amassed seemed to point to an individual who was regarded as a key suspect back in 1993, when a number of young men who drove pickups were questioned.
The licence number of his pickup appeared to correspond to some of the digits of the vehicle which Reece was in when her body was thrown, or accidentally fell, onto Main Street.
The individual reportedly became aware that he was again being considered as a main suspect, after he was ordered to notify police of his movements, particularly of any overseas trips he might make.
But in mid last year, there were whispers that all was not going well with the investigation. Kaieteur News understands that at present, there is no active investigation.
In a telephone interview, Reece’s mother, Shirley Reece, had expressed confidence that there would be a more professional investigation into her daughter’s unsolved murder this time around.
“I am hoping for a professional investigation. I am hoping for justice. I have some hope this time around. It (the investigation) seems to be going in a different direction than before.”

On the Good Friday night of April 9, 1993, 19-year-old Loss Prevention Guard Service employee, Monica Reece was murdered and dumped from a pickup in the vicinity of the Geddes Grant building (now Courts) on Main Street, Georgetown.
A post mortem revealed that she was badly beaten and had suffered a broken jaw.
Police questioned several individuals and impounded several vehicles that fit the description of the pickup from which Reece’s body was dumped. Reece’s body was even exhumed, but police were unable to gather any forensic evidence to implicate anyone.
A timeline of Reece’s movements that day revealed that at around 13:00 hrs, David McKenzie, Operations Manager of the Loss Prevention Guard Service, visited Reece at the Ministry of Health in Brickdam, where she was scheduled to work.
According to McKenzie, Reece told him that if a man by the name of ‘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, who she claimed was in love with her.
Reece also handed McKenzie a piece of paper with several names and a telephone number. The security official recalled 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 Mc Doom, East Bank Demerara. 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 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.
Then about 22:05 hrs, a woman saw Reece’s body falling out of a pickup in Main Street.
The case was labelled by some as a “high society killing” because all of the suspects were from affluent families.
Last year, one senior detective who was part of the 1993 investigative team told Kaieteur News that “a number of things obstructed us.”
“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.”
Other investigators said that a prime suspect was taken into custody but was never fully interrogated. A pickup that this suspect allegedly drove on the night of Reece’s murder was impounded, but was reportedly released without being checked for possible forensic evidence.
Commissioner of Police Laurie Lewis was at the helm of the Force when Reece was slain. Lewis had held monthly press conferences in which he had updated on the investigation. This had upset some of his detectives, who felt that too much information was being divulged to the public and to those responsible for Reece’s death as well.
The case has outlasted Lewis and four other Commissioners of Police.
However, former Crime Chief, Alvin Smith had expressed confidence that the case can still be solved.
“I honestly believe that something will break. Somehow, I believe that it will happen. My grounded belief is that the evidence is there. The evidence is alive. It comes to my mind often, after all these years. I think that the person (killer) is alive and that the evidence is there,” Smith said.

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