POLICE are following several leads in regard to the execution-style killing of taxi driver Sean De Freitas Sookdeo, 25, of Lot 12, Block ‘CC’, Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara, whose bullet-riddled body passers-by discovered early Tuesday morning at Thomas Lands, Georgetown, and informed the police.
Deputy Police Commissioner (Law Enforcement), Seelall Persaud, told the Guyana Chronicle that the passport found on Sookdeo’s body on Tuesday morning is authentic, but his US visa had been revoked, and police are in the process of doing a background check on Sookdeo, who had been well travelled.
It is evident that Sookdeo had endured a severe beating, resulting in his body sustaining torture marks, including a broken arm, most likely inflicted before he was killed.
Persaud said that Sookdeo’s body bore four gunshot wounds to the hands, head and abdomen; while there were burn marks to the back of the neck and abdomen.
Based on investigations so far, Persaud disclosed, sleuths found out that Sookdeo had collected large sums of money to deliver several vehicles which he did not import, and he had been threatened by one of those persons who had handed over money to him recently.
Up to press time, no arrest had yet been made for the brutal slaying of the father of one, who is believed to have been murdered elsewhere and his body dumped at the Thomas Lands location.
Passers-by at first thought he had been the victim of a fatal accident, but when detectives examined the body, they saw what appeared to be gunshot wounds and burn marks.
Relatives said Sookdeo had been working as a taxi driver, utilising the car of his friend who is overseas. He once vended clothes from a store, but was forced to abandon that business when the rent became too costly.
He was last seen alive on Monday at approximately 7:30 pm (19:30 hrs.), when he was overheard telling someone on his cellular phone that he would be meeting them at Mc Doom Gas Station, Greater Georgetown.
His mother, Sandra Sookdeo, said she had last seen him alive on Monday night, when he visited her Mon Repos home as usual. He had seemed his usual jovial self, and she was sure her son had not had a problem with anyone, since he had not mentioned anything to her.
When Sookdeo failed to return to his wife and daughter on Monday night by 12:45 am, his wife, Alicea Sookdeo, telephoned his parents to enquire about his whereabouts, after calls and text messages to his cell phone went unanswered, which was not a norm. A search began in earnest for Sookdeo; and when his sister who lives in McDoom got up early Tuesday morning and found his locked car parked at the side of her yard, she informed the others, but Sookdeo was nowhere in sight.
Relatives told the Guyana Chronicle that Sookdeo’s murder came as a total shock to them, since he did not seem to have any problems. They are clueless as to who may have wanted him dead.
They leant at 9:30 hrs. that his body was found, when a family friend telephoned to say that Sookdeo may have been the victim of a hit-and-run accident; but when they showed up at the Lyken Funeral Parlour, police informed them that he had been murdered, since his body bore several gunshot wounds.
Sookdeo’s daughter would be one year old in October. Her mother was expected to take her to Trinidad for a vacation yesterday morning, but those plans were ditched after they received the dreadful news of Sookdeo’s murder.
The late Sean De Freitas Sookdeo, described as a friendly, hard-working, family-oriented person, is survived by his parents and six siblings.