Aunt recalls taking stabbed nephew to the hospital

…as murder trial of ex-soldier commences

An aunt went face-to-face with the man accused of killing her nephew back in 2018 as his trial commenced on Thursday before Justice Sandil Kissoon at the High Court in Demerara.

Rawle Munroe, formerly of Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara, is accused of the May 26, 2018 murder of Edward Beveney, a 23-year-old former soldier of Triumph, ECD. Munroe has pleaded not guilty, and is being represented by Attorney-at-Law Teriq Mohammed, while State Counsel Cicelia Corbin is presenting the prosecution’s case.
In her opening remarks to the jury, State Counsel Corbin told the court that Munroe and Beveney had been engaged in a physical altercation, which resulted in the latter receiving fatal injuries.
Debbie Beveney, 52, Edwards’s aunt, told the 12-member mixed jury that, on the day in question, she arrived at her Ogle Street, Triumph, ECD home, where she cohabited with her children and niece and nephew. She recalled that she was doing chores around the home, and at about 07:00h, she heard a “noise” — it was someone shouting for her nephew by his call name “Kester”.
As such, Debbie said, she ran out of the house, and saw a crowd gathered on a bridge, and her nephew staggering. He later fell onto the ground, she added. According to her, upon examining her nephew, she observed a wound to his chest, and so she called out to him, but got no reply. She then called a taxi and took the injured man to the hospital.
Across the road from where she lived, Debbie recalled, she saw Munroe, whom she did not know prior to the day in question. Munroe, she testified, had an ice pick in his hand, and his body was covered in mud. Convinced he might have been the one who had inflicted the injuries on her nephew Edward, she said, she called out to persons, urging them to apprehend Munroe.
Back at the hospital, she said, her nephew was rushed for treatment, but, a few minutes later, a doctor informed her that “we just lost him”, meaning that he had died.
Under cross-examination by counsel for the accused, Debbie admitted that she did not see when Munroe inflicted injuries on her nephew. She also pointed out Munroe, who appeared in court virtually, as the man she had seen holding the ice pick while her nephew was on the ground bleeding.
Also testifying was Detective Police Constable Keon Burgess, who is stationed at the Kwakwani Police Station’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID). According to this witness, at the time of the murder, he was stationed at the Beterverwagting Police Station’s CID, where he performed the duties of a Crime Scene Technician.
At around 08:40h on the day in question, Constable Burgess recounted, he was summoned to the scene of an alleged murder, where he took photographs of a drain and a bridge. He said he also took photographs of the ice pick and Edward’s body while it was at the mortuary. This trial is continuing.
Edward Beveney of Ogle Street, Triumph, ECD sustained multiple stab wounds on his body following an altercation with another man over his bicycle, which he had left at a shop. Reports are that Edward had visited a shop earlier in the day, and had left his bicycle outside. But when he returned to pick up the bicycle, he was told that a man had moved it. As such, a confrontation ensued between the two men, who were both armed with sharp objects.