TWO prison escapees and their alleged female accomplice were shot dead by officers, who, acting on a tip, swooped down on a shack surrounded by bushes in the desolate backlands of Better Hope, on the East Coast of Demerara.
The dead prisoners were identified as 25-year old Imran Ramsaywack and 22-year old Ryan Jones, who both had escaped from the Mazaruni Prison in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) on February 16, 2021. The woman has been identified as 49-year-old Savita Rajkumar, called ‘Debbie.’
Rajkumar was positively identified by her 26-year-old daughter, who had received information that her mother was involved in a shooting incident on Monday evening.
According to information from the Guyana Police Force, the deceased woman was a close acquaintance of Imran Ramsaywack.
Reports are that investigators found a cellular phone, from which they were able to retrieve valuable information.
In a recap of the incident, the police said that officers received information at around 20:40 hours that the escapees were hiding out in a desolate, swampy field surrounded by bushes.
The officers, acting on this information, visited the location where they observed that there were three wooden shacks on the field, with two partly constructed.
It is alleged that the police entered the first shack but found no one; however, they heard a ‘voice’ emanating from the third shack. But, before they could act, a male emerged and discharged one round at them before making good his escape.
Officers reportedly returned fire, and, in the aftermath of the exchange, they discovered the bodies of the woman, Jones and Ramsaywack, inside the shack. There were visible gunshot wounds on the bodies. Police said that the man, who allegedly fired at the police, escaped, but a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun was found at the scene.
Jones and Ramsaywack were among four prisoners who escaped from the Mazaruni Prison after cutting the bars from within their cell and breaking the padlock to the entrance gate.
The other escapees are Kenrick Lyte, 44, who is facing a death sentence after being tried for murder, and Samuel Gouveia, 26, who is imprisoned for murder. Lyte’s last known address is Grant Goodintent Lower Pomeroon River, while Gouveia’s is lot 13 Goedverwagting, East Coast of Demerara (ECD).
Ramsaywack, also known as ‘Kevin Jones’, or ‘Coolie Boy’ was sentenced to death in December 2019, for the murder of 45-year-old US-based Guyanese businesswoman Samantha Benjamin, whose dismembered body was found at the Buxton Seawalls, East Coast of Demerara in 2015. He was a notorious gang member of Lot 7, Adelphi Village East Canje, Berbice.
Ryan Jones, who was a resident of Bartica, was sentenced in July 2018 for the murder of Puranand ‘Andrew’ Baljit. It was reported that Jones confessed to killing Baljit during a home invasion on June 9, 2016, at his Timehri, East Bank of Demerara home.
Jones was serving 28 years imprisonment and had attempted to escape from the Georgetown Prisons in 2020; he was among two of the masterminds behind the attempted prison-break. Jones’s father, Ralph Jones, was remanded to prison last month after he admitted to aiding the prisoners in their escape.
