POLICE are investigating the circumstances under which a 37-year-old phone card vendor was shot dead on Tuesday night by a lone gunman who also robbed him.

Dead is Ron Mansfield of Westminster, West Bank Demerara (WBD). Police said that the shooting occurred shortly before 21:00 hours. Reports indicate that Mansfield left home with his motor cycle to sell phone cards in the area and upon returning home he was shot by the gunman before he entered his home.

According to his wife, she was in the kitchen area of their home when she heard the sound of his motorcycle. Shortly after she heard a loud explosion and upon venturing outside to enquire she saw a man running into a bushy play field nearby.

She then looked around for her husband and saw his motorcycle parked in the yard and noticed his motionless body almost 30 feet from the motorcycle on the parapet of a neighbour’s yard. The woman related that neighbours assisted her in placing him in a car and rushed him to the West Demerara Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

His wife said it appeared to be a robbery since the gunman grabbed the haversack her husband was carrying the phone cards and cash in.