Latest update February 15th, 2025 10:14 AM
Apr 17, 2017 News
After providing a string of alibis, the son of 82-year-old pensioner Rudolph Ross has finally admitting to being at his father’s Kildonan home when the old man died in a mystery fire two Sundays ago
But he is reportedly now insisting that the blaze started after he fell asleep and left an electrical appliance on.
The son reportedly gave this statement yesterday to ranks from the Police Major Crimes Unit, who had brought him to Georgetown for further questioning.
He was still being questioned last night and a top police official said that he is to be charged with murder tomorrow.
The son, who is a former policeman, was the prime suspect in his father’s death and was detained a day after the fire occurred.
“He has given investigators conflicting episodes of what transpired,” a senior official told Kaieteur News yesterday. “Then, at a later stage, he had tried to paint the picture that the cause of death (of his father) was as a result of an accident.”
The son, police said, has now claimed that he had fallen asleep and left an electrical cooker on. He reportedly stated that he eventually awoke to find the house on fire. It is unclear whether he has explained why he made no attempt to rescue his father, who was trapped in the burning building.
“The Guyana Fire Service investigators have said that the fire was not electrical in origin,” the officials added. However, investigators reportedly recovered a receptacle, which had contained kerosene, near the burnt building.
Prior to this recent statement, the son had provided police with various alibis regarding his whereabouts at the time of the fire, which occurred at around 04:30hrs last week Sunday. He had reportedly stated, among other things, that he was in the company of a woman at the time.
However, he was unable to produce the ‘woman’ to corroborate his claim.
Police believe that the killing stemmed from a property dispute.
Rudolph Ross’s son is said to have recently remigrated to Guyana and was staying at his father’s Lot 14 Kildonan home.
Police have received information that the father and son had an argument the day prior to the fire. The argument reportedly originated from the son’s desire to have the property transferred to his name; however his father was not in agreement.
At around 4:00hrs two Sundays ago, neighbours awoke to screams emanating from the elderly man’s home. Upon checking they noticed smoke and flames bursting through the windows of the house at the back.
A neighbor and close friend of Mr. Ross said that after he heard the screams and saw the flames he immediately alerted the other neighbours to form a bucket brigade and also to figure out a swift plan to save the pensioner.
Mr. Ross was still trapped in his house and yelling for ‘help’ at the top of his lungs.
The neighbor stated that Ross was attempting to escape through his front window leading to his verandah, but was unable to.
The fire service reportedly arrived an hour after the blaze started and immediately got to work, but by then ‘Old man Ross’ had already perished.
An individual who knew Mr. Ross insisted that he was not the sort of individual who would have forgotten something on his stove.
A Post Mortem Examination conducted on the badly burnt body revealed that he died of suffocation due to smoke inhalation.
Rudolph Ross was a former Neighbourhood Democratic Council overseer.
Feb 15, 2025
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