Handyman believed beaten to death at Mon Repos

The body of a handyman was picked up late on Sunday night along the Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara (ECD) Public Road and it is believed that he was beaten to death.

He has been identified as Ganesh Roopnarine called “Brian”, 56, of Lot 134 Dr Miller Street, Triumph, ECD.

Police were alerted around 11.30 pm after a passerby reportedly noticed a man beating another with a piece of wood. By the time the police arrived on the scene, the suspect had fled with the suspected murder weapon. Up to later yesterday afternoon he had not been apprehended.

Roopnarine’s face was swollen and there was a laceration in his head. He was taken to the George-town Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Ganesh Roopnarine
Ganesh Roopnarine

He was last seen alive on Saturday afternoon when he informed his relatives that he would be staying at a friend’s house in Lusignan.

Family members were till trying to figure out what transpired before he met his demise. They are of the assumption that he was returning home when tragedy struck.

“He does drink often and so but he don’t interfere with anyone,” one relative related.

His sister, Swarsatie Roopnarine said she received the news minutes before midnight on Sunday, when an individual who is known to the family visited her house to say that Ganesh had been found lying on the road and was bleeding profusely.

As a result, she said, she and other relatives immediately went to the scene where they saw Ganesh lying on the roadway.

According to Swarsatie, a passerby related to her that he was proceeding along the roadway in his truck when he noticed a man hitting Ganesh continuously with a piece of wood. The man, she said, told her that before he could have exited his vehicle, the suspect escaped.

Relatives of the deceased described him as very quiet and decent person. They said, “He use to clean people yard and do any lil job around the place and so, but he was not a person who would fight with people when he take his drinks.” He was never married nor did he have any children. He occupied a quarter of Swarsatie’s house.

His body is currently at the Lyken Funeral Parlour awaiting a post-mortem examination which is scheduled for tomorrow.

Police investigations are ongoing.