Latest update March 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 27, 2015 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery
– is this man’s wife really trying to kill him?
By Michael Jordan
He was soft-spoken and he flashed a nervous smile every now and then as we sat in the interview room. He was 63-years old, and he had come all the way from Berbice with the strangest hard-luck story I had ever heard.
Someone was trying to kill him, he said; someone he had once loved, and who he thought loved him.
That someone had turned him from a prosperous and confident businessman to a virtual pauper; homeless and scared to walk alone after sundown. The ‘someone’ was his wife…his second wife, to be exact; and I haven’t even gotten to the most crazy part yet. He told me he had remarried some eight years ago, after divorcing his first wife. He was a virtual multimillionaire back then, and he trusted that second wife enough to open a joint bank account.
“We were living very, very good,” he said. “And then it take a sudden turn.”
That “sudden turn,” according to him, happened four years ago. It reportedly all started after they had made a trip to England. After that, without his knowledge, his wife withdrew all the cash from their joint account. She also began making attempts to acquire a US visa. She filed for divorce twice, only to discontinue the process. He claimed that his spouse also began to sabotage his business by signing documents to show that clients who owed him had cleared their debts.
Then she took him to court to get half of their assets. According to him, a judge gave him the matrimonial two-flat home at Berbice, while she was given a Jeep. He also agreed to give her $300,000.
“She said that the marriage would work if I gave her the Jeep and $300,000 and that she wouldn’t torment me anymore. I gave her the Jeep and promised to give her the entire $300,000 in a year.”
But this self-described “man of God,” said he still wanted the marriage to work. He took his spouse on a vacation to the US. They visited a Christian theme park, where his wife appeared to experience a conversion.
“She cried and said that she is finished (with her past life) and she wouldn’t do these things anymore.”
But they returned to Guyana and he found out that nothing had changed. She still wanted that $300,000 he had promised and when a year passed and he hadn’t delivered it all, she took him to court. At this time, the marriage had deteriorated to the point where they were living in separate sections of the home.Then, according to the man, she tried to have him killed.
‘HIT MEN’
Last year, two men reportedly snatched him from outside his home and took him by vehicle to the back of a Corentyne community.
And then, according to him, a very strange thing happened.
He said that the men explained that his wife had hired them to kill him, but that they had no intention of doing so. “They told me to cooperate with them. They said that they didn’t want to harm me, they just wanted her money.”
So, according to him, the men tied him up, threw tomato paste on him, ordered him to lie still, and took photographs of his ‘ bloodstained body,’ to give to his wife. They then untied him. He said that the bogus ‘hit men’ also promised to give him a recording of themselves and his wife, but never did.
He said that the following day, his wife discovered that he was still very much alive. She flew into a rage.
“YOU AIN’T’ DEAD?”
“She see me and she start cursing on the road,” he said. She say ‘You ain’t dead? They ain’t kill you?’”
The man told me that he visited a Berbice police station and told a senior rank about the plot on his life. He also showed the cop the photographs of his ‘body.’ But he said that the policeman chased him out of the station and told him not to return.
“He said that he can’t believe that this woman would do that because he knows her very long.”
He claimed that his wife made a second attempt on his life a few months ago.
Again, he was at home when two men came calling at his gate. He said that the men showed him a forged affidavit that his wife had produced in court when she was seeking spousal support. He claimed that the men also produced a recording of a conversation between them and his wife.
Like the first two ‘hit-men,’ he said that the visitors revealed that they were hired to abduct and kill him, but had no intention of going through with the plan. “They said that they were con-men, not hit men.”
He said that the men took him to a house on the East Bank of Demerara. Again, he was tied up and had to pretend to be dead. This time, his wife sent one of her friends to see his ‘body.’ Photographs were also taken of the ‘corpse.’
After the wife’s friend saw the ‘body’, she reportedly contacted the wife by phone and said “give the people the money, the man is dead.” He was told that his wife handed over $2.2M to the ‘hit men.’
According to the man, the next day, he overheard his wife and the same friend asking neighbours if they had heard that he was dead.
Later, on seeing that he was still alive, his wife allegedly accused him of ‘sticking her up’ and forcing her to withdraw $2.2M from the bank.
He claimed that a male relative of his wife also threatened to kill him.
By November, he had moved out of his own house after his wife paid a neighbor to harass him.
But that apparently didn’t stop the torment. He said that a few weeks ago, an attorney representing his wife served him with a legal document which stated that the house he owned was no longer his.
He was told that he had a week to remove his belongings from the property.
According to the hard-luck husband, he subsequently learned that his wife had sold the house to a relative. Now too destitute to hire an attorney, he said he turned to Legal Aid for assistance to get his property back.
Meanwhile, he lodges at a friend, and ekes out a living by selling the few vegetables he plants. Friends chip in by giving him meals. Adding insult to injury, he said he’s still paying off the $300,000 that he had agreed to give his spouse. He’s since filed for divorce.
“I am living day to day. I sold some karaila today to get some money. I am living on handouts.”
One positive thing that has happened is that this time around, police appear to be taking his story seriously. At present, police at Berbice are investigating his claims about the attempts on his life.
Meanwhile, he still fears that his estranged spouse will make yet another attempt to get rid of him. The recent spate of cases of individuals hiring others to ‘bump off’ their spouses is worrisome to him.
“I don’t walk around after 5.00 p.m. I heard that she is looking for somebody to do it (kill me). She could pay anybody, and this time they might not be con-men.”
If you have further information on this case or any other, please contact us at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown office or by telephone. We can be also be reached on telephone numbers 22-58458, 22-58465, or 22-58491. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address: mjdragon@ hotmail.com.
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