…as ‘junkie’ brother-in-law runs amok

A 25-year-old porknocker, who was said to be high on drugs, is in police custody after almost severing the head of his brother-in-law on Monday at Section ‘C’ Golden Grove, East Bank Demerara (EBD).

Dead is Justin Peterkin, 39, an electrician and father of one who resides at Paradise Village, East Coast Demerara. Police said investigations revealed that Peterkin, and the porknocker, visited the Golden Grove property on Monday and soon after the occupants; David King, a 51-year-old contractor, and his daughter Cassandra King, (father and sister of the suspect) left for work, an eye witness saw the perpetrator chopping his in-law, in the yard.

An alarm was raised and the suspect left the scene but was promptly arrested by the police who were summoned. The body which bore multiple wounds to the neck, head and shoulder, was taken to the Lyken’s Funeral Home awaiting a post-mortem.

At the scene of the crime, a trail of blood at the entrance to the home greeted investigators. One neighbour told the Guyana Chronicle that the perpetrator, Anthony King, visited his father’s home on Sunday night. While at the home, it was observed that Anthony bore a strong marijuana odour and was acting strange, since he began entering the bedrooms peering under the beds.

However, his father monitored him as he slept over. The following morning, Justin Peterkin, who is the father of Cassandra’s child, visited the home and commenced electrical work at a neighbour’s residence. The neighbour further explained that Cassandra, her two children and her father had left for work leaving Peterkin and Anthony King at the home.
Daniel Boutrin, a 20-year-old mason of Guyhoc Park, said he visited the mother of his child and was cooking while his reputed wife was hanging clothes in the front yard, when he heard a sound coming from the neighbour’s house.

Upon investigation he looked into the neighbour’s yard and saw Anthony King inside the yard groaning loudly with a hammer in his hand. Minutes after, he saw Anthony King standing over Peterkin chopping away on his neck with the aid of a hammer. “He had the chopper on the man neck and was hitting it with the hammer,” Boutrin said.
After being confronted with such a scene, Boutrin, in order to render assistance to Peterkin, decided to challenge Anthony King and he walked out of the yard and raised an alarm.

Shortly after a police patrol was spotted and summoned by neighbours and Anthony King was arrested and taken into police custody. According to Cassandra King, she had left her brother and Justin at home when she headed out for work.
She explained that her reputed husband was in the area to transact business with her neighbour. She left both her brother and the reputed husband at home.
Shortly after, she received a call from someone who told her to rush home.
“I left to go to a next wuk and all I hear is come home,” a tearful Cassandra said.

She explained that she lives with her mother, father and two children, ages nine and 13 and that the suspect visits the house from time to time. She does not know of any previous issue between her brother and the father of her children. “I am so sorry, please tell his mother I am so sorry,” she told media operatives.

A 2016 Household Drug Survey in Guyana had revealed that 66.5 per cent of the respondents believe that drug use has increased in Guyana over the past few years, while 40.9 per cent believe that it is easy to access marijuana.
These findings were published in the survey which was sponsored by the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Inter American Drug Abuse Commission.

In the report, 56.4 per cent expressed the view that the drug issue in Guyana is among the core concern of the government.
And according to Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan the links between drugs and violence both act as a catalyst for each other. He said that study shows that drug consumption is linked to drug abuse, delinquency, and anti-social behaviour in adulthood, as well as educational failure.

Additionally, Minister Ramjattan noted that victims and children who experience and are subjected to drug related violence, strongly develop emotional and behavioural problems and are often known to seek the use of drugs as a coping mechanism. As such, he said the domino effect of drug abuse now becomes an economic burden to the State, since both the health and criminal justice sectors are directly affected.