Woman who died in shootout with prison escapees identified

The Guyana Police Force Tuesday afternoon confirmed the identity of the woman who died in the shooting incident aback Better Hope, East Coast Demerara on Monday, as 49-year-old Savita Rajkumar called ‘Debbie’.

Police Headquarters, in a statement, explained that at about 10:00 hrs, Shenike Williams, a 26-year-old housewife of Friendship  Squatting area, East Bank Demerara, went to the Sparendaam Police Station and claimed that she received information that her mother was involved in a shooting incident with the police.

She was taken to Lyken Funeral Home, Georgetown where the body was shown to her. There, she positively identified the deceased to be that of her mother Savita Rajkumar, of Better Hope (South) Squatting Dam.

Rajkumar was shot dead along with two prisoners, Imran Ramsaywack and Rayon Jones, who had escaped from the Mazaruni Prison in Region Seven on February 16, 2021.

The woman is suspected to have been an accomplice of the prison escapees although the police have not clearly established the link between the woman and the escapees.

In an earlier statement, Police Headquarters noted that its ranks received information at around 20:40hrs that the escapees were hiding out in an abandoned swampy field surrounded by bush.

The ranks observed that there were three wooden shacks on the field with two partly constructed ones. It is alleged that the ranks began clearing the first shack but no one was seen, however, they heard “a voice” in the third shack.

It is claimed that the police immediately identified themselves when a “male emerged” and discharged one round at them and ran away. The ranks returned fire and in the end, Jones, Ramsaywack and the woman were found inside the shack with gunshot injuries.

The male, who allegedly fired at the police, escaped. A sawn-off double-barrel shotgun was found at the scene.

Jones and Ramsaywack were among four prisoners who escaped the Mazaruni prison last month by cutting off the bars from within their cell and breaking the padlock to the entrance gate.