–after car apparently overshoots Timehri Docks, ploughs into Demerara River

THE body of an East Canje man was fished out of the Demerara River early Monday morning in the vicinity of the Timehri Docks, after he apparently missed the turn while driving and ran overboard.

Dead is 39-year-old Umdut Jagnit of Lot 5 Betsy Ground, East Canje, Berbice. According to the police, Jagnit’s body was fished out of the river at around 04:30hrs after security guards in the area alerted them that a car had turned turtle in the river.

When this newspaper visited the scene of the accident on Monday, the local police related that there were no eyewitnesses to the incident, and that even though several persons who live in the area were questioned, they were unable to glean any useful information.
One Timehri Docks resident told the Guyana Chronicle that he heard about the incident at around 03:00hrs, and that when he went to the scene, there were only a few persons there. He said that when the car in which Jagnit was found was fished out of the river, the man’s lifeless body was in the back seat, and the seat belt was securely wrapped around his legs. He said he also noticed that the window on the driver’s side of the car, a Toyota 192, was down. “I find that very strange,” the man said, adding: “If a man driving and he plunge overboard, he won’t fit in the back seat so neat. And then the window went down; that means if he wanted to escape, he could have. I find that to be a miracle.”

Other residents theorised that the only way a car can go over a very clear dock in the circumstances, is if it was deliberately driven into the water by the occupant in an apparent suicide bid, or if he was carjacked and his assailants tried to ditch the car and the body. “But why he would leave till Berbice to come here to commit suicide?” one resident wanted to know. “Nobody knows this man; nobody never see him before,” he said.
Police said that the area was canvassed for anything of evidential value, but nothing was found, and no marks of violence were seen on the body. Jagnit’s body is presently at the Lyken’s Funeral Home awaiting a post mortem examination. Investigations are ongoing.