A former employee of the Lyken/Newburg Funeral Home and a female relative were arrested yesterday as the police continue their probe into the forgery of documents for the exportation of two bodies late last year.
Police yesterday afternoon picked up the former employee, who was fired several days ago, from his D’Urban Street home and the female relative at another location.
Up to press time last evening, the man and the woman were still in police custody.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that the management of Lyken/Newburg Funeral Home fired the 56-year-old employee about three days ago over suspicions that he was involved in the forgery of the documents.
Officials from the Funeral Home at a press conference last week had said that the documents were forged to show that it shipped two bodies from Guyana and it accused Sandy’s Funeral Home of being behind the deception, a charge that owner of Sandy’s, Michael Sandy has since denied.
The funeral home had alleged that it has documents, which proved that Sandy’s last had custody of the remains of Calvin Souvenir, a US national, and Nazurdeen Shah, a Trinidadian, who had died here.
Consultant at Lyken’s, Dr. Dawn Stewart had told reporters that she was contacted by a private investigator (PI) in the US, who informed her that she was conducting an investigation in relation to the remains of Souvenir which was “exported” to the US allegedly by Lyken’s on November 6 last year. It was not clear what triggered the investigation by the PI but it was stated that there were inconsistencies in the documents provided.
The investigator later sent over some documents, which bore the letterhead of the company, the company’s stamp and the signature of Managing Director of the company, Gordon Lyken but after a closer investigation it was discovered that the documents were forged.
Stewart had told reporters that after this discovery the Ministry of Health was contacted and after a check was made it was learnt that Shah’s body was exported to Canada with documentation purporting to show that Lyken’s had handled the process.
There were also documents showing that the remains of both bodies were checked by a named Guyanese Port Health Official, whose signature and stamp accompanied all the documents.
Sandy had said that he did not know anything about the matter and would have to check the records.
