CITY hotelier,Mr Joseph Alexander Jagdeo, 62, of Lot 218 South Road, Georgetown, whose trussed up body was found under a bed in his South Central Hotel on Thursday morning, had, allegedly, been murdered over the theft of two of his cell phones.

It happened after he expressed his annoyance during a confrontation with the suspect, who was a guest in the hotel, according to his wife, Fazia Hack.
She told the Guyana Chronicle, yesterday, she understands that, recently, two cell phones belonging to her husband were stolen by a male who was staying at the hotel but was scheduled to leave on Wednesday morning.
The woman added that her husband received information about who the thief was and confronted the man, who had been invited to the hotel by a known female, who frequents the business on Sundays.
Jagdeo was last seen early Wednesday morning in his office, as usual, attending to paper work and after that his movement was unaccounted for until his dead body was found under a bed in room 10.
His hands were tied and his mouth stuffed with a pillow case. Blood was also oozing from his nose.
The mother of one told this publication that her husband had abandoned his Bel Air Park home and resided in an apartment in the hotel so he could manage his business effectively.

Last visit
Hack said she lives with her teenaged son in Alexander Village, also in the city, but would visit South Central Hotel and Bar, on South Road, almost on a daily basis since they were close and, during her last visit on Tuesday, nothing regarding her husband was different.
The woman later learnt about the theft of her husband’s cell phones and what happened after that by hotel staffers, who related that the police have, since, detained a man, who said that he bought one of the cell phones from another man.
It is suspected that the killer concealed himself in the building and left after the murder, because no one recalled seeing him on Wednesday morning.
Hack was in company with her son and adoptive daughter at the business place, where some of the employees were gathered seemingly discussing their employer’s demise.
A female employee discovered Jagdeo’s corpse in one of the 19 rooms of the three-storey hotel which employs about 15 persons, mostly women, in the business that has been existence for many years.
Jagdeo had remigrated to Guyana when he took over the family business and invested money and during that time he was said to be “very giving” to people.
His adoptive daughter, Chandrouti Jagdeo, 33, said he was the only father she knew, he having taken her into his home since she was just two years three months old before living at the hotel for 20 years.
The woman described her father as a very “down to earth person” who was kind to almost everyone and very generous.
She, however, wants his killer (s) to be brought to justice, so the family members can have closure.
Hack said that her husband will be cremated on Tuesday and the business will remain closed until further notice, since she has a business of her own and the undertaking might be, too, overwhelming for her.
Police reported that a post-mortem, performed on Jagdeo yesterday by Government Pathologist, Dr. Nehaul Singh, gave the cause of death as asphyxia due to manual strangulation.