Months after the accused in Kescia Branche’s murder was freed, her mother has written to Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum asking him to reopen the investigation and focus on two members of the Guyana Police Force whom she believes played a hand in the young woman’s death.
Sonia Scott, who is now living in The Bahamas, in a letter dated June 30 and which was seen by this newspaper, said that there is evidence linking the two police officers, whom she named along with their regulation numbers.
According to the woman, who is a school teacher like her daughter was, during the preliminary inquiry into the murder charge against the now freed Matthew Munroe, the two police officers, who were key witnesses, both admitted that they had breached the force’s standard operating procedures (SOPs). However, she said they did not give accurate information regarding Branche’s whereabouts and what took place after they left with her from the Blue Martini Night club.
“Those two policemen detained my daughter, Kescia Branche, to conduct a sinister plot,” the woman wrote, adding that one of them revealed to the court that after “straggling her along to several locations in search of condoms, the victim told him that she wanted to go home to her son.”
Further, Scott wrote that a policeman who was at the Prashad Nagar Outpost, testified in court that the officer in the company of Branche approached him on November 5, 2017 for condoms. A resident of Bel Air also testified that the police constable approached him as well making the same request.
“These testimonies were confirmed in court under oath. Cheto’s Bar on Sheriff Street was the assembly after policeman [name of constable] used his cellular device to summon the other ranks on duty with him at the time. I don’t think it was an appropriate place for muster,” the mother wrote.
She called for the arrest of the police constable she said was the designated officer in charge of the operation on that morning and also the other constable.
“They were the ones caught on camera accosting and then toting the victim off on the government motorcycle in full military gear while on duty, shortly before she was found dead in the area in which they were assigned duty. These policemen must be held culpable for their actions,” the woman said.
She told Blanhum that he could refer to the 2018 prosecution file on the murder case for verification of the information she provided.
“My daughter was taken from me in a brutal manner at such a tender age. Kescia was in the process of furthering her education at the University of Guyana. Grieving after the gruesome murder of a loved one is horrifying. Let justice be served!”, the woman said.
In May of this year, the prosecution was unable to locate a witness who was key in establishing a prima facie case against Munroe for the 2017 murder and he was freed by Justice Sandil Kissoon.
Munroe, 52, was represented by a battery of attorneys led by Dexter Todd and Dexter Smartt.
The indictment against him, to which he had pleaded not guilty, was that he murdered the 22-year-old Richard Ishmael Secondary School teacher on November 7, 2017, at Georgetown.
Branche, a mother of one, was found unconscious and badly injured on the morning of November 5th, 2017, along Cemetery Road, obliquely opposite the cemetery office, in Georgetown.
She succumbed to her injuries two days later while in the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital.
An autopsy later revealed that she died as a result of brain haemorrhaging and blunt trauma to the brain.
