Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 04, 2014 News
By Michael Jordan
It has taken them almost five months, but police believe that they now know who strangled 75- year-old Joyce Lewis in her home last March.
They have linked Mrs. Lewis’ murder to a 28-year-old West Coast Demerara man, whose fingerprints were reportedly among several that investigators found in the slain woman’s Lot 3630 Christiani Street, North Ruimveldt home.
Police arrested him last Wednesday while he was gambling in West Ruimveldt. They also seized an unlicenced gun from the suspect.
Police will be seeking legal advice and charges are likely to be instituted this week.
HELD AND RELEASED
Kaieteur News understands that the police had detained the same man about two weeks ago after he snatched a woman’s cell phone in Georgetown. He was held and fingerprinted at the Brickdam Police Station, where he had identified himself as ‘Kevon Alwyn’ of Diamond Housing Scheme.
But after recovering her stolen phone, the victim reportedly told police that she ‘didn’t want any police story’. Some police ranks had reportedly suggested that the suspect be detained for at least 48 hrs so they could gather more information on him. This suggestion was ignored and the man was released.
Shortly after his release, the suspect’s prints were put in the police’s fingerprinting computer database. It was then that the Force’s fingerprint experts and staff manning the recently acquired Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), realised that the released phone thief‘s prints matched some of the prints that were found in the murdered Mrs. Lewis’ residence.
They then made frantic efforts to locate the man, who had given them a bogus name and address.
Fortunately, they managed to track him to West Ruimveldt last Wednesday.
Joyce Lewis, who had lived alone, was found partially nude and bound in the bedroom of her two-storey house on Wednesday March 26, 2014.
A relative made the discovery after Mrs. Lewis repeatedly failed to answer her cellular or landline phone. Detectives believe that the killers gained entry by climbing through a bay window near the verandah. Investigators had discovered a fresh footprint on the window ledge.
Police recently announced that their Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), acquired through a United States Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) deal, has already helped them to apprehend suspects in a number of murders and other ‘cold cases’.
Among them is the murder of 84-year-old Harold Rachpaul, who was bound, gagged and strangled in his Robb Street premises on August 19, 2011.
Using the AFIS technology, police have also linked a suspect, identified as Roger Brandt, to the murder of 74-year-old Khirul Najidam, who was bound, gagged and strangled in her Gaulding Place, South Ruimveldt home on March 4, 2011.
Brandt remains at large.
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