-sweets, other Knicks-knacks the sole objective
POLICE are investigating the brutal slaying of a security guard for something as mundane as a quantity of sweets.

Dead is Carl Nelson Bollers, 58, of South Sophia, in Greater Georgetown, who was severely beaten and stabbed to death early yesterday morning at his place of employ, the Mercy Wing Vocational Centre in the same neighbourhood, by persons unknown.
They broke into the building, the canteen to be precise, and all they took away was a quantity of confectionery.
Bollers, who was on duty at the time the incident occurred, was reportedly found, barely alive, at an unspecified location of the ‘Mercy Wings’ premises at around 01:00h yesterday morning with several stab wounds about the body.
He was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), where he succumbed to his injuries.
His reputed wife, Eileen Elexey told the Guyana Chronicle that she last saw Bollers on Saturday night as he was leaving for work. The next thing she heard was that he was lying in the compound of his workplace and was apparently injured.
Elexey said that on arriving at the work site, she distinctly heard her husband groaning but could not go to his assistance as the gate to the premises was padlocked.
Deciding to jump the fence, she eventually managed to locate him, but all he managed to say to her before lapsing into unconsciousness was: “They brutalise me.”
His face was covered in blood, she said, and among his belongings she noticed missing, were his haversack with his identification card, his ATM card and other personal effects.
Visibly shaken by the occurrence, she said: “Imagine they kill my husband for six gallons of paint and two boxes of biscuits.” How she knew about the paint?
She said her husband had been employed with Mercy Wings for the past ten years, and that the place had been burglarised earlier in the year and several computers were stolen, but that on the night in question, he was home off duty.
Friend and neighbour, Alvin Lewis said that after not seeing Bollers on the plot of land he cultivates next door,  he drove to ‘Mercy Wings’ to see what had happened and to have a word with him.
Lewis said when he got out of the car, he called out to Bollers, but got no answer. On going to the gate, which he saw was padlocked, he heard a loud groaning coming from somewhere on the premises and immediately decided to call the police and ambulance as he realised that something was amiss.
Said Lewis: “I knew I could not jump the fence to assist him, so I went to his wife’s home and I asked her to come with me to the scene, after I telephoned the police and ambulance.”
Noting that it took the police a while to show up, Lewis said that by then, Bollers was slipping in and out of consciousness. He is convinced that had the police arrived sooner, his friend would have survived, with prompt medical attention.
Lewis told the Guyana Chronicle that his friend and he lived really good, and that the reason he was looking for him on Saturday was to ask him ‘to give his place an eye’ as he was going out for awhile.
He said he and Bollers were working on paling off the drains to their property, and were in discussion about the prospect of rearing tilapias. He said Bollers was a part-time farmer and cultivated several crops, and would be at the location almost every day, once it did not rain.
He described him as a quiet, easygoing person who was very friendly, even to the children who would often steal his cane.
Earlier this month, another security guard was murdered at his place of work at Nonpariel, East Coast Demerara.
He was Ronald Cato, 44, of Non Pareil, who was battered at his workplace on July 14.
Police say the deceased, also known as Rodwell Cato, was found around 06:30 h in the security hut at the Section ‘C’, Enterprise construction site, also on East Coast Demerara.
He had been on duty there, and at the time of the discovery, his hands and feet were bound and a piece of cloth was around his neck.
His wife, Jacqueline, 34, told the Guyana Chronicle that his face was badly disfigured and his eyes swollen, indicating that he had been severely beaten.
She said she was informed he was the victim of a robbery because four heavy-duty batteries were stripped from equipment at the location where he had only secured employment a week before.
They had been married for 13 years, and the union had produced one son and four daughters, two of whom are still toddlers.
Five suspects were held in that matter, but were subsequently released due to the lack of evidence.