Police have detained a man as they investigate Thursday’s alleged forced entry into a home at Lot 26 Manchester Village, Corentyne, Berbice and the alleged removal therefrom of millions of dollars in cash and jewellery.
Forty-seven-year-old Daysha Halley, who sells ground provisions and citrus from a mobile station, explained that last Thursday she and her husband had gone about their daily vending operations as usual at about 7:00hrs, and were not expected back until 19:00hrs.
Their four children were also all out of the home. During that time, the home had been broken into, and $3.5M in cash and a quantity of jewellery were removed.
She explained that the break in was discovered by 13-year-old Julita Halley when she returned home from school. According to the teenager, when she held the door to open it, the door swung open by itself; and she later discovered that a chest containing money had been opened and the entire house had been ransacked.
Mrs Halley explained that the money was being saved to purchase a plot of land. The money, she noted, did not come easily, as she had operated her business from a donkey cart until she was able to purchase a truck.
She said she was saving with intention that when her sister arrived in Guyana in November, she would have enough money for her to buy the land.
“The chest had two padlocks….them beat it and cut it out to get in…All the wardrobe tumble up; them drawers pull out, all them clothes empty out, all them mattress lift up. The house in a mess!” the devastated woman explained.
She noted that the intruders took from her home $3.5M in cash; six gold rings, two pairs of gold bangles and three gold earrings; along with her bank card, two identification cards and other documents.
“They break open the children’s piggy banks; one had $24,000, the other one had $10,000 and another one $1500,” she explained.
Halley said she had also noticed droplets of blood on the concreted yard by her gate, causing her to believe that her dogs may have attacked the intruders.
Moreover, the woman suspects that a neighbour may have been involved in what had transpired. She explained that she became suspicious after she noticed that the intruders had accessed her yard by removing a board from her front fence. She claimed that in order to gain access to that part of the fence, only her neighbour’s bridge could have been used.
The woman’s daughter shared her suspicions, saying that when she returned home from school, she had noticed the said neighbour standing on her bridge.
One man has since been detained by the police. (Andrew Carmichael)
