Police are investigating the death of two men, whose bodies were discovered in a car in the Marriott Hotel parking lot at Kingston early this morning.
Dead are Richie Hansraj and Justin Teixeira.
Stabroek News understands that the bodies were discovered by hotel staff in a car around 1am.
The vehicle belonged to Teixeira, who was staying at the hotel.
This newspaper understands that his mother received a call informing her that he was having a seizure. As a result, hotel staff went to check on him. But he was not in his room.
There were no visible marks of violence on the bodies of the men. A plastic container with a white substance was also found in the vehicle.
The police today issued a statement:
Police in Regional Division 4 ‘A’ say they are currently investigating the discovery just after midnight last night of two bodies in a vehicle in the Marriott Hotel’s parking lot.
In a statement, the police say that at about 00:16 hrs this morning Police at Brickdam Police Station received information that two bodies were lying motionless in a car in the Marriott Hotel parking lot.
As a result, the scene was visited a few minutes later (at 00:30hrs) by D/ASP Nedd and other ranks.
Investigators were told by a 28 year-old employee of the Marriott Hotel that on Friday April 22, 2022 at about 23:30hrs, he received a phone call from June Teixeira, of Middle Road, La Penitence, Georgetown that her son Justin Teixeira, a 34-year-old Flight Attendant with American Airline, was having a seizure and if someone could check on him.
The hotel employee said he immediately dispatched another employee to check on Justin Teixeira who was a guest at the Marriott but when the employee checked the room he was staying in on the sixth floor it was found to be empty. The employee then went to Teixeira’s black Vezel motorcar (#PAC 2607) that was parked in Marriott’s parking lot where he observed Teixeira sitting in the driver’s seat, and all the windows of the vehicle were half-way down.
The employee said he opened the front passenger door and discovered Paishnarine Hansraj, a 25-year-old from Hague Backdam, West Coast Demerara, sitting in a crunch-like position. Both Teixeira and Hansraj appeared to be motionless.
He immediately called 911 and the Ambulance with EMT arrived along with the Police where they were both pronounced dead at the scene by Dr. Jagoo.
The scene and the bodies were processed by ranks from the Police Crime Scene Unit. No marks of violence were seen on the exposed parts of the bodies. A plastic container containing a whitish hard substance suspected to be narcotics was found on the back seat of the vehicle.
The bodies were escorted to the Memorial Garden Funeral Home awaiting PME.
Investigations, including the review of CCTV footage, are ongoing.
The police issued an update this afternoon
In an update, the police say that various narcotics testing techniques within the scope of the Guyana Forensic Laboratory were conducted on the various rock-like substances recovered from the vehicle all came back negative for the presence of narcotics.
However, the Officials from the Guyana Forensic Laboratory have indicated to investigators that they suspect the substance may be *sodium cyanide* which is lethal to human beings in small quantities.
However, this suspicion cannot be confirmed by the officials because the laboratory doesn’t possess the capability to do such testing.
As a consequence, the GPF will resort to sending the samples to an overseas laboratory for further testing.
