A team of police investigators from the city has left for the North West District (NWD) to conduct follow-up investigations into the death of miner Andy Whyte, Commander of Police E&F Division David Ramnarine said.
Speaking briefly with Stabroek News yesterday Assistant Commissioner Ramnarine said that a post-mortem examination was expected to be conducted on Whyte’s body yesterday to determine what he died from.
Whyte, 40, of Port Kaituma, NWD was reported missing by his wife last Thursday.
His partially decomposed body was found along a trail at Massawini (a three-hour drive by land cruiser from Port Kaituma) on Saturday.
Police have since arrested a man and he remained in custody yesterday.
The Commander also said that another team arrived at the Number 72 Miles, Issano location and discovered two human skulls and other parts of the skeletal frame.
“I do not know definitively the identities of the persons,” Ramnarine said.
He further told this newspaper that police are conducting investigations into this discovery but at this point much cannot be said. The skeletal remains, he said, are being moved from the interior location and will be examined as well.
Meanwhile, Head of the Criminal Investigation Department Seelall Persaud said that only after the post-mortem examination can it be determined whether Whyte was murdered. At this point, Persaud said, very little detail is available on both Whyte’s death and the discovery of the skeletal remains at Issano.
A source had earlier told this newspaper Whyte’s stomach appeared to have been cut open. The same source has since told this newspaper reports reaching investigators have said that Whyte may have been the victim of a robbery.
The deceased, according to the source, and one of his brothers operated a mining operation in the Massawini area. Police had reported that the man was found on a trail at Eyelash Backdam which is more than an hour’s drive from Massawini. The closest police station to Massawini, the source explained, is in Mathew’s Ridge. However, ranks from the central station in Port Kaituma would have had to respond to the report. It was other miners in the Massawini backdam, the source said, who reported the discovery to police.
“Someone who was on their way to Port Kaituma found the body,” the source said.
Port Kaituma and surrounding areas do not have a particularly high crime rate, the source said. However, with the last few weeks there has been an increase in the number of reported robberies in and around Port Kaituma. Since last Friday to yesterday there were two reported cases of robberies in the area.
These robberies, the source insisted, are not committed by Port Kaituma residents or persons familiar to the area.
“There are persons who travel here from coastal locations and come in here to rob people and then they return home and claim to have made it from some mining camp or the other,” the source explained.
