– Police reopening sensational case 23 years after her body was dumped on Main Street
– Sheema Mangar, Trevor Rose cases also being reopened

THE Major Crimes Unit of the Guyana Police Force has decided to re-open investigations into five murder cases, including that of Monica Reece, Trevor Rose and Sheema Mangar. Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum confirmed on Saturday that detectives will analyse the evidence in these cases and determine the way forward based on the advice of the force’s legal adviser.
The Reece case is perhaps the most sensational of the cold cases, following reports that there were aspects of the crime which were not properly probed by investigators back in April 1993, when she was killed and her body dumped on Main Street, Georgetown.
“We know for sure that the public has been advocating that we re-open the Monica Reece case, but I won’t be too ambitious and tell you that we will solve the case; we have to look at the evidence, we have to review those statements and we will be engaging the police legal adviser as to the way forward,” Blanhum said.
According to the crime chief, the decision was made to re-open the cold cases, following numerous requests from relatives who have lost loved ones.
“They have been coming to CID Headquarters indicating their interest in having these cases re-opened. We’ve assured them that we are in the process of re-opening some of the cases, which we know for sure we’ll be able to make some headway[with],” Blanhum said.

Monica Reece
On April 9, 1993, the body of 19-year-old Reece, who was a security guard, was discovered on Main Street. The autopsy report by forensic pathologist Dr Leslie Mootoo had established that Reece suffered a savage beating, which left her with a broken jaw and other injuries, before she was unceremoniously dumped in Main Street.
The autopsy also showed that she had had sexual intercourse some hours before she was slain. Dr. Mootoo had also collected pubic and other hair samples from Reece’s remains. These, and samples from the pick-ups police had impounded, were reportedly sent overseas.
Several weeks after she was killed, Reece’s body was exhumed and more samples taken. These, too, were reportedly sent overseas. The results, according to police, were all “inconclusive,” leaving detectives no closer to catching the killer.

Trevor Rose
Rose was a popular designer, who was fatally shot on the morning of January 26, 2014, after a lone gunman, in a heavily tinted vehicle, opened fire on the car in which he was travelling at Eccles, East Bank Demerara.
Also injured in the shooting was the driver of the car, Troy Nieuenkirk, and Rose’s companion Latoya Towler, who is the mother of one of Rose’s children. The police had said that Nieuenkirk was driving his car when another vehicle drove up alongside and the driver accosted him about how he was driving. “An argument ensued, during which the driver of the other vehicle came out with a firearm and discharged a number of rounds at Nieuenkirk and the other persons in his vehicle, after which the perpetrator escaped,” the police had added.
A post-mortem examination later revealed that Rose was shot five times. Two persons were subsequently held for questioning but were later released. A 9mm pistol and 19 matching rounds were recovered at the scene. His family remains convinced that he was killed because of a woman.

Sheema Mangar
Twenty-one-year-old Mangar, who was an employee of Demerara Bank, was killed on September 11, 2010, when she was run over by a car in which a man who had snatched her cellular phone was escaping. The incident occurred on North Road, close to Camp Street, Georgetown.
The police processed two cars that were suspected to have been involved in the matter and items found on the vehicles were submitted to the Forensic Laboratory for analysis by Crime Scene Investigators. The samples were subsequently sent to Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Brazil; however, it is not known whether detectives had received the results.
The Police Force has come in for frequent criticisms by Mangar’s family and others over the sloth in the probe and the failure to produce DNA results from what was thought to be critical evidence.