A 48-year-old dredge owner was shot and stoned to death by two men on Sunday at his mining camp in Aranka; a small mining settlement along the Aranka River which branches off from the Cuyuni River, in the North-West region.
Errol Inniss, also known as “Tall Man”, of Pike Street Kitty, Georgetown was shot in the back and was wounded in the head, his reputed wife, Sharon Mars, said.
According to a police press release, investigations have revealed that around 2.20 pm on Sunday, Inniss was on his claim working when he was confronted by a man whom he had previously fired. An argument ensued between Inniss and the suspect, who pulled out a firearm discharging rounds at Inniss, which hit him about the body, then escaped, the release said.
When Stabroek News visited the deceased man’s home yesterday afternoon, wake preparations were just beginning. Inniss’s reputed wife of 18 years was in a state of shock, but said that she was at Aranka when the incident occurred.
“I went to Aranka Landing to make a phone call and that is where the message reach me. Some of the workers come running out from the camp and they tell me that Tall Man dead,” the 45-year-old Mars explained.
She told this newspaper that she started to scream, “he ain’t dead. I just talk to he,” after the men gave her the news.
Mars said that before she left their camp she and her reputed husband had shared a joke about the pants she wore that day. “That is the last I remember hearing from him,” she said.
Mars explained that the Aranka Landing area is equivalent to a mining settlement where a small number of residents live and shops are located. The landing is just a small clearing surrounded by dense forest, she said, and a track, that stretches approximately one mile through the trees, leads to Inniss’ dredge camp.
“I run through de track. I fall down about five times before I reach,” Mars recounted.
She added that along the track, there were shallow creeks and when she finally reached the camp she was wet.
“Workers who saw the entire thing tell me what happen,” she told Stabroek News. She said the suspect and another man approached Inniss as he was starting the water engine. Both men were armed with guns and the workers were afraid to intervene, Mars explained.
The widow said she was told that her reputed husband was standing near one of the abandoned mining pits as one of the men argued with him. She added that one of the men reportedly shot Inniss who jumped into the pit in an attempt to escape his attackers.
“The workers said that after they shot at him they start to stone he with big bricks before they finally escaped,” Mars said.
The woman said she arrived at the camp between 3.30 pm and 4 pm, but they could not find Inniss’s body in the muddied waters of the pit.
“We had to drain the dredge pit,” Mars explained, “and we ain’t find he until like 6 pm.”
The woman said that when his body was finally recovered from the pit she held on to him.
“He had mud all over he. The way I was holding he, I coulda feel that he get shoot in his back and his head was bleeding,” she recalled. Mars said could “feel” that her husband was dead.
Mars told this newspaper that the matter was reported to the police that same afternoon and the next day at approximately 5 am, she transported Inniss’s body to Bartica. The woman explained that it took five hours to travel from Aranka to Bartica where the closest police station was located.
The body was then taken from Bartica to the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour by police, she said, and a post-mortem examination will be conducted today.
Inniss leaves to mourn one child and five foster children along with many relatives and friends. “He was a good husband to me,” his wife lamented, “he take me with all my children and he de always good to us.”
