Suspected shooter, 2 others arrested for murder of transgender sex worker

As the investigation intensifies into the execution-style killing of transgender sex worker Simon Shawn Anthony, also called “Coil Bottle”, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum has confirmed that three persons were arrested on Thursday evening following a high-speed chase with police.

One of them, he noted, is suspected to be the shooter, and he is presently cooperating with detectives. The Guyana Times understands that the car suspected to have been used in the gunning down of the sex worker has been impounded as police continue their investigations.
The 27-year-old victim was gunned down at about 2:00h on Thursday at the corner of South Road and King Street, Georgetown by an occupant of a heavily tinted dark grey motor car. At the time of the fatal shooting, the victim was in the company of other sex workers.
The police have since recovered nine 9MM spent shells at the scene, but according to detectives, the victim was shot only once, under the right arm.
On Thursday, Orin Fraser who was an eyewitness to the shooting and a close friend of the deceased, recalled that on the day in question, he saw Simon talking to someone in a silver fielder wagon after which they both went into a yard “doing a business.”
Fraser stated that about 30 minutes later, Simon returned and it was then, that he observed the tinted car.
“Me and meh next sister Pretty was talking and making laugh and the same car had come around back and pull over… I was the first one to go to this car. I make three attempts to go to this car. Then Coil Bottle said y’all don’t go, that man came to me. And the man drove up with a speed.”
Despite them warning him not to approach the vehicle, Simon did not pay heed.
“This was my last words, I said girl don’t go, I told Coil Bottle don’t go and she went in front of the car. By time this woman put up her foot to go in the car, Coil Bottle was in front of me and if you hear gunshots start to shoot out.”
Fraser disclosed that because of the darkness inside the car, they could not identify the shooter. Another of his colleagues, however, identified the shooter as “Shaggy.”
“Everything in the car was dark, the only thing I see is something like sparks coming up from the front right by the driving side no other window had went down from the car and I held my ears and start run over the road… soon after that I see Coil Bottle lying in a pool of blood” Fraser added.
The police on Thursday stated that they were reviewing the CCTV footage from cameras in the area.
In October 2023, Simon had visited a friend, who works at a hotel in New Amsterdam, Berbice and while there, three men and two women – all of whom he knew– had threatened him. He had later accused the men of assaulting and threatening him.
At the time he had claimed that he had gone to the Central Police Station in New Amsterdam, and an officer took a statement from him and asked that he return the following day. He had said that even though his face was partly swollen and he was bleeding, the officer did not give him a form to obtain a Police medical report from a doctor.