The police are investigating the murder of a man, who was discovered early yesterday morning with chop wounds about his body and his head almost severed from his neck at Haslington North, East Coast Demerara.
Dead is David Gentle, 55, called ‘Black Hassa,’ of Lot 42 Golden Grove, also on the East Coast, who had left home to attend a karaoke event.
The police said Gentle’s lifeless body was discovered around 1 am with several wounds. His neck was almost severed.
Initial investigations, the police said, revealed that Gentle was last seen at a karaoke event at Nabaclis North, on the East Coast.
Homicide detectives were up to yesterday afternoon working to determine what might have led to Gentle’s demise. Robbery has been ruled out since all his belongings were retrieved from his pockets.
When Stabroek News visited the scene yesterday, residents said they did not hear any strange sounds which might have alerted them to something being amiss.
One resident said she was awakened by her mother-in-law, who informed her that a body was discovered in front of their premises.
The woman said that upon checking, she noticed a large crowd and later learnt that the individual was murdered.
Meanwhile, Stokley Roberts, the dead man’s brother, told Stabroek News that his brother’s death has left his family and community at large puzzled. He said based on the injuries inflicted, it was clear that Gentle’s attacker/s wanted him dead.
“Apparently he was ambushed. That’s more like an ambush… No one would have receive those kind of wounds and live. When a man head actually come off his body, how he gonna live like that? He wasn’t robbed because everything was retrieved from his pocket, in terms of his phone, he had on a ring. So it was clearly a murder,” Roberts noted.
‘Village eye’
Roberts said he believes that his brother’s killing was linked to either his job at the Nabaclis Neighbourhood Dem-ocratic Council (NDC) or because he reportedly gave chase behind some men who evaded the police.
“I think, for the kind of job he was doing that might actually attract some kind of discomfort with some people because he is like an enforcer to the village… people might be living on the parapet and public reserve… the position he got, he is like an enforcement officer… he would approach you, serve you and them kind ah things and you know that might not be comfortable with some people,” Roberts said.
According to Roberts, Gentle saw himself as the “village eye.” He said he believes that his brother was after his killer/s for some time. “I think was person/s who he was following. He was like a village eye… he obviously old, you know, he tell himself his duty is to like look over fah everybody. Leh we seh for example he would see me breaching a place, he would call out to me or he would say don’t do it and these kind of stuff. So what I suspect is that he was actually pursuit of this person/s,” Roberts added.
He further explained that in search of answers, he himself did some investigating and learnt yesterday that Gentle had recently given chase behind some persons who had reportedly evaded the police.
“…They were people on bicycle but after the police vehicle cannot go across small bridges, they use this cross street and he (David) was seated right at the cross street, where they evaded the police from the main road, where the police can’t go in, and he probably pick up the trail from there. By that time, they did already evaded the police. That’s how he met his death by actually going after these people…my knowledge and my ground work that I did is that he was following these guys,” Roberts said.
He related that he last saw Gentle around 7 pm Sunday at his home. “He (Gentle) was in good health and everything. I said hi to him, I departed…and I came out on the street to my place of business. I never saw him back until this morning with the wounds and stuff,” Roberts said.
Roberts said that while Gentle was not an “open individual,” he could not recall him mentioning any trouble with anyone.
“I can’t recall him saying or complaining about anybody want to do him anything. It might be going around there but he never draw it to my attention,” Roberts said.
