Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 24, 2013 News
A brother of Totaram Mootoo is pointing fingers at two overseas-based men, whom he claims plotted the execution of the 54-year-old businessman and his wife, down to the tampering of surveillance equipment in the couple’s home.
The brother also claimed that the men were motivated by a desire to gain Mootoo’s assets, while refuting suggestions that a vendetta with underworld figures caused the May 9 slaying of the couple.
He suggested that the killers were paid with cash that had mysteriously disappeared from the businessman’s house several days prior to his execution.
Police sources confirmed yesterday that the brother and an in-law of the slain businessman, have relayed their suspicions to investigators.
A source told Kaieteur News that detectives had been examining other motives but were now pursuing this new lead.
The brother, and the in-law, who also reside overseas, expressed their suspicions during a visit to Kaieteur News yesterday. They arrived in Guyana several days after the couple was cremated and complained that they had been kept in the dark about the funeral plans.
Two of the slain couple’s sons are also in the country.
According to the brother, he learned about the couple’s death sometime after 03:45 hrs on May 10, after receiving a call from one of his brothers. He said that the two suspects immediately came to mind, and he subsequently received information that seemed to confirm his suspicions.
The man said that he contacted the couple’s sons, who subsequently travelled to Guyana.
Mootoo’s brother and the in-law both suggested that the murder plot was hatched about a month before the couple was slain. They claimed that equipment recovered by police indicated that someone had tampered with the surveillance equipment in the couple’s Guysuco Scheme, East Coast Demerara residence. The two men also alleged that Mootoo was in the habit of keeping large sums of currency in his home and was upset after several million in local currency disappeared from his residence.
They claimed that the money-changer kept two safes in his residence and alleged that one of the safes had disappeared. Police had said they found an open, empty safe in the slain couple’s bedroom.
The two men said that they are determined to assist the police in every way possible in bringing the individuals who plotted the Mootoos execution and the killers to justice. The brother is convinced that the individuals who executed his sibling and sister-in-law were close associates of the victims.
Police had detained three individuals, including a bodyguard and a handyman, but have since released them.
The charred bodies of 54-year-old Totaram Mootoo, called ‘Beer’, and 48-year-old Bhagmattie Mootoo, called ‘Dolly’, were discovered three Thursdays ago in their master bedroom after firefighters extinguished a blaze in the couple’s home.
Mootoo’s hands were bound behind his back with duct-tape while his wife was lying with an arm around her husband. Investigators said that the blast was triggered by a 20-pound gas cylinder in the bedroom.
A post mortem revealed that the Mootoos were still alive when the cylinder exploded. Cause of death was from extensive burns and smoke inhalation. The victims also sustained blunt trauma.
Police received reports from residents who claimed that they saw a car with heavily-tinted windows driving away from the area shortly after hearing the explosion. However, they have been unable to glean any evidence from surveillance cameras in the area.
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