Twenty-seven-year-old Yannic Gilpin, a handyman of Russel Street, Georgetown, was on Tuesday arraigned for the murder of his 88-year-old grandmother, Patricia Bovell, whose body was found wrapped in a sheet among a pile of garbage.
Gilpin appeared before Magistrate Dylon Bess at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts and was not required to plead to the indictable charge which stated that on March 22, he murdered Bovell.
As such, he was remanded to prison until April 11. It was reported that Gilpin, who is unemployed, during interrogation reportedly told investigators that Bovell, would often accuse him of stealing her personal things, and that he had made several complaints to other relatives but they told him that she was old and that he should not take her on.
Remanded: Yannic Gilpin
The grandson, however, recalled that on the morning of Sunday, March 19, at around 04:00h, he was in the bottom flat of their shared Russel Street, Georgetown home when he heard a sound emanating from the upper flat, which the elderly woman occupied alone.
As he went to enquire, he heard his grandmother screaming “Murder!” and “Thief!”, but after checking around, he did not see or hear anything unusual.
He recalled that at the time his grandmother did not have on any clothes, and she was sitting on the floor with her dentures close by.
Gilpin explained that as he was leaving the upper flat, his left foot accidentally struck his grandmother in the head, thus causing her to fall onto a rug on the floor, where she sustained injuries.
At that time, he realised that the woman was motionless and she was not responding. He reportedly panicked, wrapped the woman’s body in a sheet, took it down the stairway and placed it on an old fridge.
Still in shock and fear, the man waited until the course was clear before he took the body and dumped it among the garbage across the street from the house.
However, his cousin went to the house hours after the incident and enquired about the elderly woman, but the grandson reportedly told him that he had taken her to the Georgetown Public Hospital after she complained of feeling unwell.
Checks at the hospital for the woman proved futile. As such, the suspect was arrested, and upon initial questioning, he related the same story he told his cousin.
Meanwhile, Bovell’s body was discovered last Wednesday morning. It was following the discovery that the grandson confessed to the crime.
