Resh­ma Ra­goonath

The mur­der of South?Oropouche gar­den­er Adio Juilen is said to be linked to the dis­ap­pear­ance of $150,000 worth of mar­i­jua­na. Julien's body was found in a pond near his Berridge, South?Oropouche, home last Thurs­day. A 37-year-old South Oropouche man was held at his Ralph Nar­ine Trace home on Fri­day in con­nec­tion with Julien's mur­der. He re­mains in cus­tody at the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion.

Julien, 30, was shot in the knee and his throat slit be­fore his life­less body was dragged and dumped in the pond which he would have used in the past to wa­ter his crops. Po­lice be­lieve Julien was killed af­ter the dis­ap­pear­ance of mar­i­jua­na from the area two weeks ago. The sus­pect in the mur­der was ar­rest­ed around 1 pm on Fri­day by Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors Sgts An­der­son Pa­ri­man and Pe­ter Ramdeen.

Julien was killed mere me­tres from his home. Last Tues­day, the day be­fore Julien's mur­der, his moth­er De­bra Jef­frey said a man she knew came to her home and threat­ened to kill her son. The moth­er of six said he showed her two bul­lets which he said were for her son. She said she dis­missed the threat be­cause the two men went to school to­geth­er and she be­lieved they would have sort­ed out their dif­fer­ences.

How­ev­er, on Wednes­day night, Julien came home around 8 pm, dropped off a bag of gro­ceries and walked down the street, near a track he would use to get to a near­by vil­lage. Jef­frey said she watched her son walk out of sight, and min­utes lat­er, she heard an ex­plo­sion. She ran out to see a trail of blood but her son was miss­ing. Po­lice combed the area and fol­lowed the trail of blood to the bushy area around the pond.