The saying “justice delayed is justice denied” has never been more applicable as it is in the case of Jacqueline Bobb, who is fighting tooth and nail to bring the perpetrators of her son’s murder to justice.
Dead: Nicholas Bobb
For the past year, Bobb, the mother of Nicholas Perion Bobb, has been fighting and with every passing day of the quest, the much-desired justice seems further from reach.
Nicholas, a young man from Carabese Hill in Bartica, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), was shot in the stomach by a group of men on April 21, 2019. It was reported that the young man was employed as a driver and on the said day, at Kurubrong Trail, Potaro River, he and his boss, Emanuel Jeffrey, were shuttling dredging equipment when they observed a green truck proceeding in the opposite direction at a slow rate.
As such, Nicholas stopped his vehicle on the left side of the trail for the truck to pass. But instead, two loud explosions were subsequently heard, thus causing Jeffrey to take cover. Jeffrey said he heard a strange voice which ordered him to jump into the truck; he complied and entered the tray of the lorry where he saw about eight other men.
He further told Police ranks that he managed to escape by jumping off the moving truck. He made his way back to the area where Bobb had stopped, only to find him dead. A bullet wound was seen in Bobb’s right-side chest.
During an interview with Guyana Times, the grieving mother vented her frustration at the slothfulness of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) in dealing with her son’s case.
“I visited the station and talk with the new Sergeant thinking that I would have get results and he told me he would look into it and he also told me the file went to the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) 15 times and the police them still have to do some work, so, I don’t know,” the elder Bobb related.
Further, the mother broke down in tears as she stated that since the passing of her son, it has been difficult for the family to cope.
“It’s very hard, very hard because you know I does always say not like he was a bad person. He was working for his money and these people killed him. The whole story is that the police know who did the crime. I have an Inspector cousin and when the thing happened and he called the station to find out from the Inspector who was in charge he told my cousin that they know who was the person. They said they were looking for [name withheld] that he was the shooter,” Bobb noted.
The mother related that she is constantly in the police station, trying to garner information as to the progress of the investigation but they continue to give her the royal runaround.
“Up to now, I can’t hear nothing from the police and last time I talk with Inspector Henry they had to go for the man that was next to my son and that is the part that has me baffled that there was somebody next to my son when my son was shot and they cannot hold nobody for my son’s shooting. I am not happy at all with the inception of the investigation because I was pushed around by the previous Commander. One time when I showed up at the Commissioner office, he had a lot of attitude and one time he said I was messing up the investigation.”
The heartbroken mother is contending that the police have been lax from the inception of her son’s murder. She has been searching for the right answers ever since she got word of her son’s death and with each passing day, that quest becomes tougher.
Bobb asked every contact she has in the “bush” to find out what exactly transpired but the information she has been gathering has been conflicting. However, she is not giving up the fight any time soon and is calling on the police to be a bit more invested in bringing her son’s murderers to justice.
The angry mother went as far as accusing the police in Bartica of attempting to bury the investigation since they have no interest in solving the murder. She said this was cemented in the earlier stages of the investigation since the police basically kept the family out of the loop of the investigation. She also remembered the police refusing to have the family accompany them to the murder scene to recover the body.
Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) Police Commander, Senior Superintendent Linden Lord noted that he was not the Commander at the time, but based on information he garnered from his Detective Inspector, the file was sent to the DPP three to four times and the file is at the Bartica Police Station because a directive of the DPP is that they need to continue the investigation. (Shemar Alleyne)
