The bodies of a couple bearing multiple stab wounds were discovered at Wismar, Linden on Wed-nesday evening and a suspect who had threatened one of the victims has been arrested in connection with the crime.
Police have identified the deceased as Imogene Gordon, 49, of Lot 117 Prosville Housing Scheme, Wismar, Linden and Royston John, 43, also of Prosville Housing Scheme and Kildonan Village, Corentyne, Berbice.
According to police, the dead bodies were discovered at the entrance of Gordon’s residence at about 8.35 on Wednesday. They were subsequently pronounced dead on arrival at the Linden Hospital Complex.
The suspect is a 48-year-old businessman, also of Prosville Housing Scheme, with whom Gordon previously shared a relationship. The man, who was caught a short distance away from the scene of the crime, had previously threatened to sever her hands. He was treated at the Linden Hos-pital Complex for a gaping wound to his right hand before being discharged into police custody. Up to last night he was being questioned at the Mackenzie Police Station about the deaths.
Regional Commander Superintendent Hugh Winter yesterday said that while there were no witnesses to the crime, a neighbour heard strange noises coming from Gordon’s residence. As a result, she called the woman’s phone and after her phone rang out, she then called the police, who discovered the bodies.
Gordon operated a water distribution business that she shared with John while also rearing pigs.
According to a family friend, who asked not to be named, Gordon returned from Trinidad and Tobago four years ago and began a relationship with the suspect. She described it as “rocky” and noted that the two were “on and off” for more than a year. It was after the two called it quits that she took up with John, with whom she was in a common-law relationship.
The family friend noted that the suspect, despite their break-up, stalked Gordon. She tried to put a stop to it by reporting him to the police after he threatened to sever her hands on March 10. He was last week put on a six-month bond to keep the peace but was heard telling police officers that the bond would not prevent him from seeing Gordon.
Gordon shared six children with her estranged husband, who lives abroad with them. The two went their separate ways more than a decade ago.
Meanwhile, Lawrence Nieuenkirk, an uncle of John, told a different story. He said that his nephew, who moved to Linden about four years ago, went there in search of work. The man said though he wasn’t close with John, he had been told that his nephew lived with a woman with whom he shared a child. He made the trip to Linden yesterday to identify the man’s body. “According to what the police and the neighbours said, he was doing some work for the woman [Gordon]. He did just coming out the house and locking back the door when the suspect start to attack he. The man was hiding outside the house and he jump my nephew and stab he to he neck and all over then she [Gordon] see and start to holler then the man [suspect] start to stab she,” Nieuenkirk recounted.
The bodies are presently at De Jetsco’s Funeral Home awaiting autopsies expected to be done today.
