| By Michael JordanSixty-three-year-old Randolph Josiah, who is being charged today for the murder of his 14-year-old stepdaughter, was also the prime suspect in another brutal murder 12 years ago.Kaieteur News has confirmed that Josiah was detained in February, 2001, after the body of his girlfriend, Emily Ann Bollers, was found on Mashramani Day of that year in a trench in Fourth Street, Agricola, East Bank Demerara.Kaieteur News was told that the woman’s throat had been slit.Murdered in 2001: Emily Ann Bollers, former girlfriend of murder suspect Randolph JosiahJosiah had lived with Bollers and the woman’s two small children in an apartment some 200 metres from the trench where her killer disposed of her remains.Police sources said that detectives detained Josiah for over 72 hours, but were forced to release him because of a lack of evidence to link him to the killing.Emily Bollers’ son, Lexton Williams, was just 12 years old and her daughter 15 years old at the time.The siblings said that the murder last week of Josiah’s 14-year-old stepdaughter Fenella Samuels brought back unpleasant memories of their own mother’s unsolved murder.“That whole experience just rushed back to me,” Lexton Williams told Kaieteur News yesterday,Both siblings recall being terrified of Josiah, who they said was particularly violent towards their mother and also threatened them.“I used to be so afraid of this guy…I watched that man literally try to break my mother’s jaw. I recall one time the neighbours called the police and they locked him up for the night. He beat my mother every day and she was afraid of him. ”Lexton Williams alleged that on the last night that he saw his mother alive, Josiah had verbally abused his mother. He said that the two had then left the family’s Agricola home.She never returned and her body was found shortly after.“I saw her leave the house and I never saw her back.”William’s sister recounted having an eerily similar encounter with Josiah as the one 14-year-old Fenella Samuels is said to have experienced before she was cornered and slain.“He was being verbally abusive to me and saying things that would make you believe that me and this man were in a relationship.”The sister, at the time a mere teen, alleged that Josiah then shut the front door but fortunately, she managed to flee through the back door with only one of her shoes on. She never returned to the house.Murder victim Fenella SamuelsThe siblings expressed disappointment that their mother’s killer was never convicted.Nevertheless, they hope that they will find some closure now that Josiah has been apprehended and will be charged for murder.Prison officials confirmed last week that the now 63-year-old Josiah was jailed for ten years around 1991 for the attempted murder of a woman. He was also twice remanded, but later freed, after he allegedly stabbed two other women. This newspaper understands that one of the victims was a policewoman who was stabbed in a Robb Street night spot.Josiah’s stepdaughter, Fenella Samuels, a student of Vreed-en-Hoop Secondary, was stabbed to death at the family’s home, located in the West Coast Demerara squatting area known as Plastic City.A postmortem on Friday revealed that she was stabbed some 21 times to practically every part of her body.Kaieteur News was told that the wounds, reportedly inflicted with a large kitchen knife, damaged almost every vital organ.“There was stab wound after stab wound; she was hacked to pieces; I got tired of counting,Cheap NFL Jerseys,” a source who witnessed the postmortem told Kaieteur News.“The arteries in her neck were severed; her heart, liver and lungs were perforated. This guy was crazy. This had to be (an act of) spite. This could not be just a guy quarreling over a (stolen) cell phone. This had to be a crime of passion.”Josiah fled the scene but was apprehended Thursday night by residents who spotted him attempting to flag down passing vehicles on the Vreed-en-Hoop Public Road.Kaieteur News was told yesterday that some individuals had warned the slain teen’s mother about his violent past.Samuels’ mother alleged that her husband had become incensed and had begun to verbally abuse Fenella after the teen informed them that a boy had stolen her cell phone.Murder suspect Randolph JosiahBut she also said that the girl’s stepfather became further infuriated after his stepdaughter called him a murderer and accused him of previous abuse.The woman told Kaieteur News on Thursday that while her spouse had hinted at his violent past, particularly during arguments, he had never physically abused her. But she did say that her daughter had complained about her stepfather’s behaviour about three years ago when the family was staying at Linden. |
