Springlands octogenarian beaten to death over pension – man in custody
A 30-year-old man was on Friday arrested over the fatal beating of an 88-year-old pensioner of Hazel Street, Springlands, Corentyne, Berbice.
Fitzherbert Grimes was rushed to the Skeldon Public Hospital on Friday around 1.30 pm with a lacerated wound to his mouth, swollen eyes and other injuries about his body. He succumbed to his injuries while receiving treatment. Stabroek News
was told that the suspect, who was a frequent visitor to Grimes’s residence, paid him a visit on Friday minutes after 1 pm. Moments after the suspect entered Grimes’s house, the pensioner was heard screaming for help.
According to a Dexter Parks, who had been overlooking Grimes for one year now, on Friday he left his son, the pensioner and the suspect at Grimes’s home and went to a nearby shop to purchase a beverage. “When I meet home, I see the man [Grimes] lay down pon the ground and he [the suspect] say, ‘Watch wah happen here’. I ask he [the suspect] wah he do the man and he say is na he that is he brother do it. But then neighbours come out and say is he kill the man,” Parks said.
According to Parks, the suspect had ordered Grimes to hand over his pension to him. When Grimes refused, the suspect started to beat him. “Is he kill the man. That is wah the neighbours telling me; that is he choke the man and stamp the man and kill the man,” Parks said. “He choke the man for he pension money.”
Parks said he went to the Springlands Police Station and made a report and police rushed to the scene where they arrested the suspect, who was still in Grimes’s yard. The suspect has since been identified as Lincoln Odle also known as ‘Shadow’, of Springlands.
According to a police source, Odle confessed to beating the pensioner because he refused to hand over his money to him.
Grimes’s body is currently at the Skeldon Public Hospital awaiting a post-mortem examination.