Cops nab suspect in miner’s murder

Police have arrested a suspect in the murder of McDoom miner Gavin McNeil and the search is on for a second person, according to Crime Chief Seelall Persaud.

Persaud said police arrested the suspect on Tuesday night. He said that this particular person was not pointed out to police before.

The person who they have information about is still to be found, he said.

McNeil was shot four times last Wednesday as he parked his vehicle, moments after arriving home to a robbery.

According to police, the attack occurred at about 7.55 pm, when McNeil and his two daughters, 12 and 14 years, and his mother-in-law, June Elwin, 49, had just returned home.

As McNeil was parking his vehicle, the others proceeded to the house, where they were confronted by the robbers. Elwin said there were five of them.

Police said the men, two of whom were armed with guns and the others with knives and cutlasses, forced their captives to call out to McNeil’s wife, Melissa McNeil, 32, who opened the door for them.

The armed men then took away an undisclosed sum of cash, a quantity of jewellery and a cell phone and escaped.

 Gavin McNeil
Gavin McNeil

It was as they were making their way out of the compound that they shot McNeil to his neck and shoulder, according to police.

He was later pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Though relatives and the police have said that he was the victim of a robbery, security sources say that from all indications there is more to the man’s death.

McNeil, who took up operations in the Siparuni area after leaving Venezuela, had only moved to the East Bank Demerara community about eight months before he was killed.