– left to die in police station compound
A 42-year-old electrician was battered to death by unknown persons between Monday night and early yesterday morning and so far police have been unable to determine the circumstances that led to the incident.
Dead is Ardell Haynes of 1290 Spurwing Drive, South Ruimveldt Park. He sustained serious injuries to the head and face and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital some time after 3 am.
Police said in a statement yesterday that the beating occurred at Pirai Place, East La Penitence. However, a resident of that area said the man was found in Meadow Brook badly battered by a group of young men who were looking for a man who had just broken into a house in Pirai Place. The group initially thought the injured man, who was later identified as Haynes, was the thief they were looking for.
Up to press time yesterday no one had been held in connection with Haynes’s death.
At his home, his reputed wife Sheril Sydney said Haynes was a heavy drinker.
She said Haynes, with whom she had a ten-year-old daughter, was a well-known electrician who had wired places such as National Pride and Tropical View. At the time of his death, she said, he was working at Swansea.
According to Sydney, he had no known problems with anyone that could have led to such a brutal end to his life.
She said that when he left home in the morning, he would return around 4.30 pm, but if she did not see him around that time it meant he was out drinking with his friends.
She said his usual drinking spot was on Norton Street, but on his way home he would ride through Meadow Brook cross over Aubrey Barker Road and turn into Cane View Avenue so as to avoid the traffic. The bicycle he was riding as well as his spectacles and cap, she said, were missing.
Sydney, who works at night, said that her daughter called her around 8.30 on Monday night to say that her father had not returned home. She said the child told her she had called his cellular phone but the number rang out. She asked her mother to make an attempt to contact him because she wanted to go to her bed.
Sydney said she tried calling Haynes around 11 pm, but she too did not get through and didn’t bother to call back, because she assumed that he was somewhere drinking. She said too that when he was imbibing he did not answer his phone when she called.
The woman said her nephew was the last person to speak with her husband and from all appearances while he was being beaten, somehow the nephew’s number was redialled accidentally.
She explained that the nephew answered but didn’t hear anyone on the other end, However, when he reviewed the number he realized that it was his uncle’s and called back.
“When he call a male answer and [he was] hearing in the background… ‘y’all don’t kill dat man’, [he was] hearing women and men’s voices,” Sydney said. She said her nephew told her that a man answered the phone and he asked to speak with his uncle, but the man tried to pass himself off as Haynes before ending the call. This happened twice, she said.
Sydney said that when her nephew contacted her with this development, she decided to ring the East La Penitence Police Station; this was some time after 3 am. She said she wanted to enquire whether there had been reports of anyone who had been beaten. She said her call went unanswered and she then rang her husband’s cellular phone. It was answered by a man who identified himself as “police”. She said she was then told to redial the station’s number and this time a policewoman answered and told her “yes, they bring in a man and they say how the man is a thief”.
The woman said she relayed this information and three relatives went to the station where they found Haynes lying in the sand between some traffic motorcycles in the station compound. The rain was falling in a light drizzle at the time, she said.
“Apparently, after they go and they seh he is a thief, the [officers] at the station… ain’t even budge to see if the man blue, black, pink or what,” she added.
According to her, when they saw him one eye of his eyes was closed and badly swollen and he was not responsive, but breathing. His forehead was also badly swollen.
Sydney said they picked Haynes up from the station yard and took him to the hospital where he was pronounced DOA; the police did not stop them from moving him nor did any police officer accompany them to the hospital.
Break in
Meanwhile, Christine Canterbury, a resident of Pirai Square, East La Penitence told this newspaper that someone had broken into her home early yesterday morning. She recounted that around 2 am she was awakened by shouts of thief. She said the person had entered the upper flat of her home through a window near the veranda. She said the person stole a television set but as he was making his getaway persons in the area saw him and raised an alarm.
According to the woman, the man dropped the appliance and fled through a nearby alley, but a group of young men pursued him.
Shortly after she said a badly beaten man was taken to her home and she was asked whether he was the thief.
The persons, inclusive of young men from the area, said they had found the man staggering in Meadow Brook. She said the man was asked how he had sustained his injuries and after he did not respond he was taken to her home. The resident insisted that the beating the man suffered did not occur in Pirai Square. She said that there was visible swelling of his forehead, but she did not recognize the man as she did not see the thief when he fled. She added that no one in the area could identify the man as the person who had broken into her home.
The man was subsequently taken to the police station.
Police later visited the woman’s home and conducted investigations.
