Sheet Anchor man beats, chops wife to death

- escapes over Canje Bridge

A Sheet Anchor man yesterday morning beat and chopped his wife to death, according to eyewitnesses, and then jumped into the Canje Creek.

Mintie Karamchand, 40, of Lot 19, Sheet Anchor Village, East Canje, Berbice sustained several chop wounds to her wrist and foot, along with several lashes with a wooden bench in her head.

The accused, Goldburn December, also known as “Goldie”, 47, of said address is presently on the run. B Division’s top detectives were still hunting for him, as of late yesterday afternoon.

Goldburn December

Eyewitnesses told Stabroek News that December was beating the woman, after which he picked up a “chopper” and started chopping her on her wrists and ankles. However, one person told this newspaper that the man then took a small wooden bench and dealt the woman three lashes in her head, while screaming, “You nah dead?”

According to another eyewitness, he then fled the scene with an item looking like a rope shouting that he was going to kill himself. Persons saw him jump off the Canje Bridge into the Canje Creek, which is located near to the scene of the incident. However, there is speculation that the man might have swum out of the creek and escaped.

Drucilla December, the duo’s eldest daughter, who was at home at the time of the incident relayed that around 9:30 am, she was upstairs tending to her eighteen-day-old baby when she heard screams coming from her mother, who was in the downstairs kitchen with December. She said that she then ran downstairs.

“I hear she ask he ‘Goldie’ wah I do you ‘boy’ and I see she jump through the window and lay down on the ground.” She noted that her mother had chop wounds on her hands and feet, when she escaped through the window.

Mintie Karamchand

She said that with her child in her hands, she ran in front of her father in an attempt to save her mother, but he ordered her out the way, as he picked up a small wooden bench and slammed it three times into Karamchand’s head.

Drucilla said that she ran outside and began calling on neighbours for help, however, they were afraid to come out. She said that at this point her father made a run for it.

“When I come in back she did lay down on the ground, and she did still breathing and then lil’ after me grandfather come and carry she to the hospital,” Drucilla recalled.

Karamchand was pronounced dead on arrival at the New Amsterdam Public Hospital around 10:30 am yesterday.

According to Drucilla, her mother, who was a waitress at a restaurant in New Amsterdam returned home around 6:30 am yesterday morning. She explained that she and her mother were involved in a small argument.

“… and I tell she I gone move out. When my father come and he ask she ‘what happen?’, she tell he that I get baby, that she gone move out and I don’t know if that get him angry,” Drucilla said.

She further explained that the couple was together for some twenty-four years, and together they have five children. However, about eight years ago, her father left the family and went to live in Suriname. However, he was deported from Suriname last month and had moved back into the house at Lot 19, Sheet Anchor.

Drucilla confirmed that during the eight years her mother had moved on with someone else and this had annoyed her father.  “He did try touching her and she did tell him that she don’t like it and I told him don’t touch her and he stopped,” the daughter noted. The daughter stressed, that although the duo lived in the same house since her father’s return from Suriname, “they were not back together”. She also said that since returning, her father would imbibe regularly.

The eldest daughter explained that her mother worked and took care of the family after her father departed. She pointed out that without support from December, Karamchand was sending their youngest daughter to high school, and she is presently in fourth form.

The daughters were seen in tears in the yard, as they could not believe that their mother had died. Drucilla added, “Me get c- section and me mother used to work and take care of me and the baby, since me get baby, me mother ah do everything for the baby.”

A neighbour, Vanessa Artiga, said  that the police would have been able to place December under arrest had they responded to the first call. She said that when they heard, “Goldie was murdering Mintie” she ran to the scene.

“When we go in the yard we see she deh on the ground and she was breathing, then Goldie run back inside the yard, and said ‘Oh, you nah die yet, you hard fah die’ and picked up the wood and give her three hit in her head, and it was like then she died.”

Artiga relayed that she immediately telephoned the police and was told, “We got to take the person to the hospital, and let somebody go and make a report at the station, I call back and say is a murder and the guy running away, then them say they gone come. If dem did move on time they would ah catch the guy”, she opined.

“When I go in the yard she had some chops, like she veins them cut on both hands and both feet at the bottom”, Artiga said.