A 42-year-old rice farmer has confessed to murdering 14-year-old Christopher Basdeo of La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara (WBD), whose body was found buried in a shallow grave on Friday.
The teen had been missing for over a week after leaving his home on October 17, 2019, to visit a friend in his neighbourhood.
The body of Christopher Basdeo was found on Friday in a shallow grave
On Friday, after intense grilling by investigators, the rice farmer admitted that he and Basdeo were consuming alcohol in their village when an argument over money ensued.
He told the police that he and the teen ended up in a physical altercation. He admitted that he picked up a piece of wood and used it to deal a blow to Basdeo’s head.
In his confession statement, the rice farmer stated that the impact from the hit resulted in the teenager falling to the ground. He said he left him on the ground and returned to his home.
However, the man said that later on that night, he returned to the location, picked up Basdeo’s body, and dug a 7ft 2” shallow grave where he buried the body.
Crime scene
In the company of several policemen, the rice farmer returned to the crime scene and, after digging the spot which the man claimed he had buried the boy, the decomposed body of Basdeo was found. His skull also appeared to have been fractured.
Basdeo’s family was subsequently contacted and the body was positively identified by his father, Chitranauth Basdeo.
The teen’s mother, Debbie Basdeo, told Guyana Times that she was contacted by Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) Commander, Senior Superintendent Linden Lord after the body was found.
She said she immediately went over to the location at Lot 317 Lust-en-Rust, Parfaite Harmonie, and positively identified the decomposed remains as her son.
According to Basdeo, the body was found some distance away from their residence, buried between foundation materials at an ongoing construction site.
“It was somebody house foundation that they already had sand and posts and they dig and put my son there,” the woman said.
The aggrieved woman stated that Police formalities are yet to be completed as they await a post-mortem examination to determine the cause of death.
This publication had initially reported that the teen’s relatives were desperately on the hunt after he disappeared without a trace two Wednesdays ago.
Basdeo had related that her son went home from the Goed Fortuin Secondary School on the said day and indicated that he was visiting a friend’s house. According to her, he would never stay away from home for long periods and after he did not return home, she suspected something was amiss. He was the youngest child and had four other siblings.
Daniel McArthur, Shawn Inniss and Hurrcarlaus Harris, all 18 years old, appeared before Magistrate Leron Daly and denied that on October 17, 2019, at Camp Street, Georgetown, while being in the company of each other, they robbed Ethan Mookho of two cellphones valued $298,000.
Another charge against McArthur alleged that on October 11, 2019, at Georgetown, he stole one handbag valued $5000, a phone valued $65,000 and $2000 from Juliette Wills. To this charge, the teen also pled not guilty.
After the charges were read, Police Prosecutor Sanj Singh objected to bail being granted to the three teenagers on the grounds that Mookho was stabbed to the back with an ice-pick whilst giving chase to the defendants when the robbery occurred.
The court further heard that the teenagers were positively identified by the victims as the persons who robbed them, as it was captured on CCTV.
As such, Magistrate Daly upheld the prosecution’s submission and remanded the trio to prison until November 29, 2019.
