-had cuffed a glass window in his rage and had bled considerably
THE reputed wife of Dennis Harris, 44, a miner of 1525 Onderneeming, La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara, is in police custody assisting with investigations following his death early on Friday morning.

The detainee’s daughter, Samantha Wray, told this publication that she was at home with her three children including her newborn baby when her mother, Yonette Grumbs, 45, and her stepfather Dennis Harris returned home after midnight from a birthday celebration of Harris’s grandfather, held in the same village.

She explained that her stepfather was under the influence of alcohol, because, when he arrived home he began, as usual, to quarrel with her mother and behave in a loud and disorderly manner.

After a few minutes, he was locked outside the house after he picked up a scissors and pointed it at her mother, saying he would end her life.

In a fit of rage, he punched one of the front glass windows of the house and sustained a gaping wound to his hand. Thereafter, he went to a relative’s house a block away from where he was transported to the hospital.

Samantha Wray said they did not even know Harris was dead, until the police showed up at their door at about 03:01 hrs, saying they had come to arrest her mother for Harris’s murder.

Yonette Grumbs, mother of three, was transported to the La Grange Police Station and later taken to the Den Amstel Police Station, where she is currently being held pending the outcome of a post-mortem to be performed on Dennis Harris.

Wray said that had they not put Harris out of the house, he would probably have killed them all, since he had been very abusive to her mother and had often threatened them on several occasions.

She added that Harris used to ill-treat her mother, herself, and even her small children, but she abided with the situation only because her mother had loved Harris and he had returned home from the interior on December 23, 2013.

Wray said her mother ‘hooked up’ with Harris seven years ago and had since changed and would not listen to reason despite the way Harris treated her. She would frequently be subjected to violent abuse from Harris, who would often beat her in front of Wray, but Wray could not intervene because whatever Harris said was ‘gospel’ to her mother.

Wray said they had had to relocate from Beterverwagting and Sophia respectively because of the way Harris had behaved; and, in fact, it was only five months since they had moved into the new location.

She noted that even before her mother and Harris had left home on Thursday night, they had been arguing; and they had returned home arguing.

Harris is believed to have severed a main artery in his hand when he had cuffed the glass window, because he had lost a considerable amount of blood; and that was probably the cause of his death.

Harris had been totally uncontrollable at the hospital, and had even verbally abused the medical staffers who were tending to him.
By Michel Outridge