Rose Hall store employee confesses to robbery which left security guard dead
- implicates second person in custody
After days of investigative work and grilling of eleven suspects, one person, an employee yesterday confessed to the police that he was involved in the robbery at the store in Rose Hall Town, during the course of which the security guard was murdered.
Stabroek News was told last evening that the lad in his confession had implicated another suspect, who is also in custody.
On Saturday, the battered body of Muneshprem Ayasammy Monien, also known as ‘Watchie’, 53, was discovered. He had sustained a slit on his throat, a chop wound on his head, two broken legs and other injuries about his body. Commander of B Division, Lyndon Alves, last evening confirmed the confession to this newspaper, as he explained that the police at the time were “tying up loose ends” since they had been given a “positive lead” from the suspect.
He stated that the person who confessed, had “implicated another person in custody”.
On Monday, the police had a total of nine persons in custody, seven of whom were employees at the store. However, on Tuesday, two more persons were arrested, and it was only yesterday that one of the suspects, a resident of Guava Bush, Albion, Corentyne, who had started working at the store late last year, broke his silence to investigators.
According to the commander, the other persons are likely to remain in custody, as investigators were granted an extension.
After the guard’s body was discovered late Saturday evening, the police immediately launched an investigation, and were working on the theory that an employee may have been behind the robbery, since it was being suggested that a staff member had purposely left a door to the building unlocked on Saturday afternoon.
Alves had previously said that based on investigations it may be likely that an employee may have been involved since there were no signs of any forced entry to the building. A source had told this newspaper that investigators believed that an employee had sought help from other persons to rob the business place. The source had added that according to information, two members of staff are responsible for closing the business every afternoon.
Monien was stationed at Sukhram’s General Store and Agro Chemicals, popularly referred to by the Rose Hall residents as ‘Fat lady,’ and located along the Rose Hall Town Public Road. The caretaker of the store, who resides in Albion Village, Corentyne, received a call around 11 pm on Saturday night that something had happened at the store. She then rushed over where she saw a large gathering of residents and police officers outside of the store.
An eyewitness had told Stabroek News that when the woman entered the store, the body was tucked in a corner on a few sand bags next to the door at the back of the building where Monien would usually stand guard.
Stabroek News was also told that the entire store had been ransacked and over $1.5 million, Saturday’s sales, had been stolen from the building.