My story on Nakema Deonauth’s death, based on irrefutable facts and evidence

Jul 26, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

I am writing this to tell my side of what transpired on June 12, 2023 when I found my son’s, Nakema Deonauth, aka Damendra or Dimitri Deonauth body, blue on one side and lifeless. Everything written below is based on irrefutable facts and evidence.

Damendra was a kind, caring, forgiving and beautiful soul. He was accomplished in so many ways – in law, computer science and the humanities. He was born in Washington DC, USA and moved to Guyana when he was nine years old. He studied in Guyana, India and China. He was fluent in Chinese. He was employed by the Guyana Ministry of Education and was also an international consultant. He was well respected personally and professionally. He was at the pinnacle of his career.

Damendra lived in China during COVID and he struggled under the harsh restrictions there. I urged him to return to Guyana. He continued to have moments of stress when he returned to Guyana about two years ago. But he loved being back and he treasured family and friends. He was the center of my life and I will miss him greatly for the rest of my life.

I usually have breakfast with Damendra every day. From Monday-Saturday, I pick him up between 7:15-7:30 am. We have breakfast then we go together to the shop. On Sundays, I visit him at his place.  On Sunday, June 11, I went to my son’s place around 9 am. I left about 10 minutes later (Damendra said he was tired and not hungry). Damendra walked me to the outside street door and we said goodbye. The police have videotapes in their possession confirming when I arrived and when I left, including showing Damendra saying goodbye to me at the building door.

I did not see Damendra again and I did not speak to him again that Sunday.

Monday, June 12, as usual, I went to pick up Damendra for breakfast. Usually, I call out to him from the street and he comes to the balcony to let me know he is coming down. On this particular day, even though I kept calling out to him, he didn’t answer. I tried to get into the building to go to his apartment but the outside front door to his building is only accessible with a key, both for entering and exiting.I didn’t have a key. I asked the other tenant, whom I will designate as Mr. YY to protect his privacy, who lives in the building and also has a store there, to let me in. I couldn’t get into Damendra’s apartment because there is a locked metal gate and a locked door to the apartment. I banged and banged on the door and kept calling his name but there was no answer. Mr. YY witnessed this and has confirmed this to the police.

I didn’t have a phone, I don’t usually carry one so I went to the store and waited for my wife to arrive so I could use her phone. I then called the landlady, whom I will designate as Ms. XX to protect her privacy. I explained that something seemed wrong with Damendra and I needed to get in his apartment.

Ms.  XX said that she would meet me at the apartment in 15 minutes. When she arrived, she did not have a key to the front door of the building. Again, we asked Mr. YY to unlock the front door. The police possess a videotape confirming the time of both my second arrival and Ms.’s XX arrival at the building.

Ms. XX gave me the apartment key and I went upstairs to Damendra’s apartment. I went immediately to his bedroom but I was unable to enter although the door was slightly ajar. I pushed the door and saw Damendra’s body lying on the floor blocking the door, his face was in downward position.

I panicked with fear of what might have happened to him. I turned him over and saw there was blood on his nose and on the floor. There was a black and blue bump on his forehead, his face was also black and blue and his arms and legs were discoloured. I wiped the blood from his nose with my clothes and my hands and began giving mouth to mouth resuscitation. I was rubbing his hands and feet. There was a bump in the front of his neck and I was massaging it because I thought that was preventing him from breathing. The only thing on my mind at that moment was to revive my son.  I also immediately called my wife.

My wife arrived around 9:10 am and I asked her to call an ambulance immediately. I ran downstairs to unlock the door for the ambulance, leaving it unlocked. I ran back upstairs to continue mouth to mouth resuscitation on Damendra. The ambulance arrived around 9:20 and the police around 9:30 am. This is confirmed by the videotapes the police have in their possession.

Also, as soon as the police arrived, one of the men who identified himself as a security guard and is also a street vendor, told the police I had killed my son. He knew nothing of what had happened. He was able to rush into the apartment because I had left the front door unlocked for the ambulance. I learned later that the police seemed to take his accusation seriously. This same street vendor took pictures, which he was later selling for thousands of dollars to anyone interested.

The ambulance people were two young female medics. Because the building door was unlocked, between 10-15 persons also came running in, including employees from the nearby stores and two men who said they were security guards for the nearby stores (the police should have videos of this). One of these men was also a street vendor. They began taking photos of me on the floor with my son and probably other photos – I don’t know because I was focused on my son. Damendra’s building does not have security guards.

The medics told me that I had to stop the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I begged them to take my son to the hospital. They then clapped together a small device to give him oxygen and they did CPR. They looked into his eyes and then said he was dead. The thought that Damendra had died was more than I could bear. When the police arrived around 9:30 am, I kept begging them to take Damendra to the hospital. They refused. I was overcome with uncontrollable pain and anguish.

I was so desperate that I didn’t want to believe that they could not save Damendra. I know now I was behaving irrationally. But I didn’t realise it at that moment. The only thing I realised then was that I wanted my son to be alive. I didn’t want him to be dead.

I asked the police if they had kids and, if so, they would know how I was feeling. I was experiencing levels of stress so far above what I had ever experienced in my life of 70 years.  And no one was listening to me. So, I lashed out at the police. One policeman then told me, “ok, big man I will show you what a little boy can do” and they grabbed me and took me downstairs. As soon as we got outside, they put handcuffs on me in front of all the passersby and onlookers, and put me in a police car. That was around 10 am. I was kept in the car until about 2:30-3 pm, after when the police took me to the Alberttown Police Station. It was a very hot in the car and passersby and people around all saw me in the police car. It was humiliating and degrading.

It is impossible for me to describe the pain and anguish I was feeling. It was overwhelming. My son was in the apartment with people who refused to take him to the hospital. I couldn’t hold him. I couldn’t comfort him, I couldn’t see him because I was handcuffed in a police car on the street outside his apartment. I was a suspect and I didn’t understand why. I felt dehumanized.  I have experienced death, my parents, two sisters and a brother. But the emotions I was feeling were more powerful, especially because my only son was lying upstairs in the apartment and I was so helpless.

I had lost my son and I was being treated like criminal. It was completely devastating. I didn’t know how to grieve because I didn’t understand what was happening to me and why I was being treated this way. I vacillated between mourning my son and fearing what would happen to me. I was at a loss to understand it. The only thing I had done was finding my son in such a terrible condition and trying to revive him. When I arrived at the Alberttown Police Station on Monday, June 12, I was asked to give a statement, which I did. I then sat on a bench at the station until Wednesday, June 14 around 7 pm when I was taken to the Brickdam Police Station and placed in a cell with five other persons. No police had spoken to me during that time on the bench or in the cell.

An autopsy was performed on Damendra on Wednesday, June 14. On Thursday, June 15 around 5 pm, my lawyer arrived and I was allowed to leave the cell after posting bail. Since then, I have met with the Alberttown Police twice concerning my statements.

The media ran with the story labelling me a murderer due to the fact that I had been detained relating to the death of my son. This has cost me my reputation, not only in Guyana but abroad. People in the US, Canada, the UK and India have asked about this. I have never had a problem with the law in my life. People I have known for 30 years and people who I thought knew me, now question me. My reputation that I have guarded all my life is now tarnished.

And all I did was find my son dead and tried to revive him. I know now that I was irrationally hopeful that fateful morning in not wanting to believe that Damendra was dead. But I felt I was fighting for his life and I had to do so with every core of my being. I was a father, shocked that my son was gone forever. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t accept it. I would have traded my life for his.

It is also shocking how my wife and I were treated even though it was obvious, or should have been obvious, even to a lay person,that it was clear from the condition of Damendra’s mostly blue body that he had been dead for quite some time before 9 am when I entered his apartment. According to the government’s own expert, Damendra’s body was blue on one side because he had been dead for hours and the blood drained on the side he was lying on.  So, we are still reeling from the experience and trying to recover from how we were treated like criminals. We, who had just lost a son, just because we were the first to find Damendra’s blue body. This memory will forever haunt us as we mourn his loss for the rest of our lives. It is an experience that we would not wish on our worse enemies.

My wife arrived about 9:10 am, about 10 minutes after my arrival.  She will explain her experience.

Yasmin’s Experience

I arrived at Damendra’s apartment around 9:10 am. The front door was locked and Mr. YY opened the door for me because I didn’t have a key.I ran upstairs and found Rajendra (known as Rudolph) in Damendra’s bedroom. Damendra’s head was on the mattress (which was on the floor) and Rudolph was giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and rubbing his body.

Damendra’s face, his hands and feet were blue. I didn’t recognize my son. Rudolph screamed at me to call the ambulance. I found Damendra’s keys so Rudolph could open the street front door for the ambulance. Rudolph ran downstairs to open the door. He came back upstairs and started again mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Damendra.

I began to rub Damendra’s neck, chest and stomach because I thought this might give him back a pulse in a few minutes. I desperately wanted him to be alive and okay. Two young women medics arrived with the ambulance. They stopped Rudolph from giving mouth-to-mouth to Damendra. They used a clapping device to give Damendra oxygen. One medic opened Damendra’s eyes, jumped back and told the other medic that Damendra was dead.

Rudolph was still there and he was screaming that they should take Damendra to the hospital. They did not listen to him and he became angrier and more upset. Rudolph was telling them that they didn’t know what it meant to lose a child and to be a father and that they will never have children. One policeman then told him, “ ok big man I will show you what a little boy can do.” At that point, about 8-10 policemen came into the bedroom and grabbed Rudolph and took him downstairs

About 10-15 persons had also come rushing in when the ambulance arrived. Two men said that they were security guards but Damendra’s building does not have security guards to the best of my knowledge. These men began taking pictures of Damendra and Rudolph. I don’t know what else they took or did because there were so many people and it was confusing. The police also arrived soon after. One of the men who said he was a security guard asked Rudolph why he had killed his son in front of the police. I chased the people away who did not belong there.

The police then held me standing in the stairway for about 1 ½ hours. Then they took me outside the building in the hot sun and kept me there standing guarded by many police until about 2:30-3pm when they put me in a police vehicle and took me to Alberttown Police Station. This is a busy area with lots of people coming and going. There are many stores and street vendors. I felt so ashamed and so humiliated. And this was bad not only for my personal reputation but also for my business reputation because I am a business woman.

I stayed calm even though I had been standing in the sun for hours and was in pain because my son was dead and I saw how my husband was treated when he became emotional. The police made me give a statement at the station. I was allowed to leave around 11pm. I did not have contact with my husband during this time. I was worried about him because I knew he was devastated by Damendra’s death and I didn’t know how he could cope with the loss of our son.

I was a suspect and I didn’t understand why. I had just lost my son. I was very close to Damendra. I also didn’t understand why Rudolph was still in custody. I knew how much he loved Damendra and that he would be feeling sad, broken and scared. I knew that he had screamed at the police but it was a natural reaction because he wanted them to save Damendra and he thought they didn’t want to help. He couldn’t understand that there was nothing anyone could do because Damendra was gone. Rudolph refused to believe that even after the medic said Damendra was dead. It was too much for him to bear.

The police took many items from the apartment. We don’t know everything they took but we know that the items included Damendra’s laptop, phone, his backpack and personal items and electronic devices. They also took my phone. The apartment is still labeled a crime scene and we cannot access it because the police say they are still conducting an investigation. I have met with the police at the police station once after I was detained. We still don’t understand what is going on. We still do not know the cause of death and the police are still investigating. Every day, we hope to hear that this nightmare is over and we can mourn Damendra.

We are still trying to understand why were treated in such a degrading and humiliating manner while we were trying to accept the cruel fact that our son was dead. Our lives have been turned upside-down, especially my husband because he was detained by the police for 72 hours. Every day was torturous because my husband was a suspect. We didn’t know what the next day would bring.

The coroner has told us that it was impossible for my husband to have killed Damendra in the 10 minutes he spent with him before I arrived and 20 minutes before the ambulance arrived. One entire side of Damendra’s body was black and blue. His face was blue. His feet were cold. The coroner told us rigor mortis had begun. It takes hours for rigor mortis to begin. Also, the discoloration on his body would take hours. The coroner said outright that “the father did not kill his son.”

The police have also told me, my husband and other family members that my husband is not a suspect. But we still live in anguish and fear because we know how we were treated just because we found our son dead, who according to medical evidence, had been dead long before my husband and I entered our son’s apartment. At this point, we want this nightmare to be over. We want to grieve our son in a normal and human way without clouds hanging over us.

The police have not yet made a statement because they say that they are investigating the matter.

In the meanwhile, we wait in fear, sorrow and grief.

Yours faithfully,

Rajendra Deonauth (aka Rudolph Deonauth)

Yasmin Deonauth

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• Conducting, Investigating, Rajendra Deonauth, scene, Yasmin Deonauth

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