Stanleytown murder victim died of multiple injuries 
AN AUTOPSY performed on the remains of Verone Patoir, whose bloodied body was found in the hallway of her Lot 42 Mudflat, Stanleytown, New Amsterdam, Berbice home, revealed that death was due to a fractured skull among multiple injuries.
The post mortem examination was done at New Amsterdam Hospital by Government Pathologist Dr. Vivekanand Brijmohan and the woman will be buried tomorrow, in her home village, Sand Hills, Berbice River. Meanwhile, the murder suspect remains in police custody.
Nickitta Hughes returned home from school last Friday and stumbled on her lifeless mother in the house.
The secondary school student, who, recently, wrote the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) examinations had, earlier, left her mother preparing to wash clothes as she, her sisters, Oshanna, 14 and Kathy, 10, departed.
The girl said she had taken money from her mother to buy a snack and was about to leave when she observed her mother’s friend, ‘Uncle Suresh’ seated in his parked hire car, a short distance away.
The pre-teen said another identifiable male and a student of Vryman’s Erven Secondary School were also in the vehicle which took them to school.
However, on returning home about 14:55 hrs, she mounted the backstairs and was surprised to find the door ajar. It was on entering the kitchen and going through the hallway that she saw her mother’s feet and blood on the floor boards.  
Fearing the worst, Nickitta called for her younger sister while exiting the house, and alerting neighbours.
As news of the tragedy spread in the closely knit community, hundreds gathered even as crime scene investigators scoured the scene for clues.
People jostled each other to get a glimpse of the battered woman with hairs from her head pulled out and throat slit. A bloody rolling pin was taken away from the scene by detectives.
The suspect was arrested while soliciting passengers for his hire car.
The victim’s sister, Mildred Persaud recalled sharing a close relationship with her sister and said it became strained after the latter began seeing the suspect.
“He started to tell her all kinds of things about me and we hardly used to talk to each other,” Persaud said.
She said her nieces complained, to her, last week that the suspect visited them and had a gun, with which he threatened to kill their mother but, later, said he was just making a joke.
Friends of the 40-year-old dead woman said she was in an abusive situation and was not allowed to socialise much.
Relatives said her reputed husband Loyston Hughes is currently residing overseas and was in the process of sending for the children.
Patoir’s eldest sister, Celestine Jaundoo was murdered 20 years ago, at Smythfield, New Amsterdam.