Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum announced that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) will be reopening the cases of three high-profile killings that occurred in Guyana, one dating as far back as 1993.
The unsolved murders of Monica Reece, 23, in 1993; Sheema Mangar, 21, in 2010 and Trevor Rose, 32, in 2014 have been added to a list of soon to be reopened investigations.
Blanhum told the media on Saturday that there are several cases which will be revisited but the Sheema Mangar murder will be placed on the front burner.
Mangar, who was a Demerara Bank employee, was brutality murdered when she was run over by a car on North Road, close to Camp Street, after she struggled with the driver to recover her cellphone which had been snatched from her.
When her phone was taken, the young woman gave chase behind the perpetrator who entered a motorcar that drove off. Mangar placed herself in front of the vehicle in an effort to stop it but was run over and dragged several meters before the vehicle sped away.
According to reports, DNA samples solicited during the investigation were sent out of Guyana for testing, however they disappeared. The Crime Chief disclosed that the death of designer Trevor Rose is another top priority case to be revisited. Rose was killed execution style on the East Bank Demerara Public Road on an early Sunday morning.
It was just after 05:00h when another car pulled up alongside the car Rose and his female companion Latoya Towler, were in.
Reports indicated that the driver of the car which Rose was in, had an exchange of words with the occupants of the other car, who then exited the vehicle and opened fire on them, hitting Rose to the neck and upper body.
The female got a gunshot wound to the buttocks while the driver, Trevor Newinkiri sustained a wound to his left shoulder.
Rose was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital. There were claims that his death was linked to some other form of activities which led him to being murdered. Blanhum said that the Monica Reece case will also be reopened.
“I recently requested that file, when we locate that file we will be analysing the evidence and also we will make a determination and make contact with the police legal advisor and we know for sure that the public, they have been advocating but I would not be too ambitious and tell you that look, we are going to solve the case, we have to look at the evidence, analyse and review those statements and then engage the police legal advisor on the way forward,” Blanhum explained.

 Monica Reece

Reece was a security guard, who became known to all Guyanese after her body was dumped from a speeding pickup vehicle in the vicinity of the Geddes Grant building (now Courts) on Main Street, Georgetown on April 9, 1993.

 Trevor Rose

 Sheema Mangar

The police had picked up a suspect and questioned him and also detained a vehicle he sometimes drove, but shortly after, the lack of evidence caused him to be released and the vehicle returned.
Police Commissioner Seelall Persaud announced during the GPF’s Annual Route March to mark their anniversary, that he has been flooded with calls and letters for certain high-profile cases to be reinvestigated.
He expressed that demands are pouring in because persons have become aware that many cold cases reopened by the Police Force are being solved. The Babita Sarju case, which was reopened almost six years after her tragic murder, was cracked by the Police.
The matter is currently engaging the Courts.
Sarju, then an employee of BK International, went missing on October 4, 2010 on Diwali Motorcade Night.
It was long suspected that her husband had a hand in her disappearance, and only recently, detectives upon reopening the case, discovered the woman’s skeletal remains buried aback her husband’s yard.
During an interview with Guyana Times last year, the Top Cop had announced that the GPF will be establishing a Cold Cases Unit sometime this year to investigate high-profile murder cases, which to this date remain largely unprosecuted or unsolved.
President David Granger had previously announced that moves were afoot to develop a Coroners Department to deal with the extrajudicial killings that plagued the country and haunted the minds of thousands of Guyanese.
The People’s National Congress (PNC)-led A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition had indicated on numerous occasions, its intent to launch these probes into the killings between of 2000-2008.
However, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), while supportive of the move to launch investigations into these unsolved cases, objected to the limitation imposed on the time period for these impending probes.
“If the Government is serious about this probe, they must go as far back as the 1970s and they must probe all of the high-profile and ordinary extrajudicial killings,” former President Donald Ramotar had insisted when contacted for a comment on the matter.
He also wanted the Government to look at the evidence that emanated from the Rodney Commission of Inquiry as there were still so many questions that could be answered. (Guyana Times)