SEVENTY-five-year-old Joyce Willis, of 3630 Christiane Street, North Ruimveldt Housing Scheme, was yesterday found motionless in bed, hands tied, throat slit and underwear well below her legs. 

Reports are that robbery was the motive, and the perpetrator(s) may have gained entry to the upper floor where the deceased lived through a back window on the lower flat, since the grillwork on that window was removed

and the house ransacked.
Ms Willis, described as easy-going and a good neighbour, has reportedly been living alone since her husband, an ex-policeman, died, and her children migrated to the United States.
Speculation is rife in the neighbourhood that the perp(s) may have been someone outside the community since Ms Willis was well loved by just about everyone in theirs.

Her best friend, who asked to remain anonymous, said she got up the night in question around 12:00hrs and spoke with Willis, as they were planning to go shopping the following day, as is their wont on occasion.
The woman said that after speaking with Willis, she went back to bed at around 01:00hr, and, getting back up at 06:00hrs, began calling for Willis but the phone just kept ringing out.
After going at it for about thirty minutes, she then placed a call to the deceased’s son, whose only name was given as Dr. Stanley, and told him that something may have been the matter with his mom. She said Stanley called back moments later with the shocking news that her friend was dead.

Unable to control herself, the woman said: “I can’t live without Joyce; I can’t do without Joyce; she is my best friend. Everywhere she goes, she takes me; she means a lot to me; she helps me a lot; I can’t live now.”
Shane Willis, a cousin of the deceased, told the Guyana Chronicle that having gotten a call from a relative of theirs saying Joyce had died, he rushed down to her Christiane Street house where he met her sister crying and screaming at the top of her voice: “Dem kill she! Dem kill she!”
At the time, Shane said, the police were already at the scene, and upon seeing him, the deceased’s sister told him to jump the fence, whereupon he saw a bloody cutlass wrapped in green cloth and a bundle of keys in front the house.
Shane, who was in the habit of checking up on his cousin from time to time, since she lived all alone, said: “My cousin is a very good woman; she is a very good and helpful woman; she don’t trouble noone. Why did they tie her down and rape her? She is so old, and they did her that?”
Willis’ body was removed by undertakers from the Lyken Funeral Home after the police were done with their investigation. (Asif Hakim)