Cops seek motive for Pomeroon murders

Martin Godette
Martin Godette

 

The police were up to yesterday afternoon still working to ascertain the motive behind the murders of Ambrose Baharally and Martin Godette, the Pomeroon farmers who were shot dead on Sunday and a potential witness was taken into custody to assist with the investigation.

The man, said to be a farmer, was reportedly in the vicinity when Baharally, 28, of Grant Stelling, Hope Lower Pomeroon, and Godette, 23, of Friendship Canal, Lower Pomeroon, were shot dead and subsequently fled out of fear. “He is not one of the two suspects we are looking for. He is just assisting with the investigations,” a reliable source told Stabroek News.

Ambrose Baharally

Divisional Commander Khali Pareshram, when contacted for an update on the investigation, said that the team of police officers that had been dispatched to the area was scheduled to return until late last evening.

Meanwhile, Crime Chief Paul Williams said that while the motive for the murders remained unknown, it is suspected that the men knew their killer/s. “…Based on what one of their wives told the police, they were all talking together before gunshots were heard,” he said.

Both the men were discovered lying motionless with gunshot wounds to their heads. They were later taken to the Charity Hospital, where they were pronounced dead on arrival.

The police, in a statement, said that a preliminary investigation revealed that the victims were seen conversing with the suspects and shortly after two loud explosions were heard and the suspects were seen fleeing the scene in a boat.

A 9mm spent shell and a live round were recovered at the scene.

Stabroek News had previously reported that Baharally and Godette were drinking at the former’s residence when two men pulled up alongside in a boat. The men reportedly exited the boat, greeted Baharally and Godette and started a conversation. Some minutes after, two gunshots were heard by Baharally’s wife, who was inside the house at the time.

She rushed out of the house and found her husband and Godette lying on the ground with two gunshot wounds. She then noticed that the assailants had run towards their boat and they escaped along the river.

Baharally’s wife then went to get help and the men’s bodies were removed and transported to the hospital.

‘We don’t know’

Miquel Benn, Godette’s mother, told Stabroek News that she has been receiving different accounts of what transpired since her son’s death.

“The boy that was there say that Ambrose shoot my son [Martin] and after the first gunshot go off he run away then he hear another and by time he return to the scene he see all two of them [Baharally and Godette] lying down on the ground. He say he didn’t see no other body or any boat with people escaping as they are saying,” Benn related.

This is one version of what transpired that is being told, Benn said. “We don’t know exactly what happen because like the boy trying to tell the police what happen but they aint want hear anything,” she added.

Benn explained that while she was not aware of any issues between anyone and her son that might have led to his death, she was told that Baharally was known to have threatened numerous persons.

Benn, who is a teacher, said she received a call from a fellow teacher who told her that her son was involved in an accident. “At first, I was told that he got in an accident in the river, so I assumed was some boat accident or something but by time I reach Charity I got another call that my son get shoot and he dead,” the woman related.

She said she last saw her son on Friday, when he transported her to attend a meeting. “He drop me and we talk and so, then he went back home and I didn’t hear back from him until when I got the call because I didn’t go home over the weekend, I sleep at my one of my sisters,” she said.