A peculiar request by the killer of 47-year-old Guyanese Eton Lyken has raised suspicion in the brother of the deceased.
Eton Lyken
Speaking to Barbados TODAY from Guyana today, Allan Savoury said he found it “very strange” that the person responsible for killing his older brother at Country Park Towers, Country Road, St Michael, around 12 a.m. on Sunday, asked the father of five to take off his pants before the shooting occurred.
A distraught Savoury said he was struggling to put this piece of the puzzle together, because only those close to Lyken knew that he always kept his money in his underpants. Savoury explained that his brother did this from the time he was a businessman in Guyana, before migrating to Barbados.
Allan Savoury
“I find it extremely strange at a robbery scene, why would you instruct him to take off his pants? It is strange that he was told to take off his pants. From since he living here that is how he does operate. He used to go about doing salt beef and pickled pork that is what he used to do here.
“Then he shut that down and he migrated to Barbados. Since my brother start working, he always does wear an underpants and that is where he always got he money stashed. It is not something of recent, it is something that he doing years now,” Savoury said.
According to police reports, Lyken, of Beckles Road, St Michael and Andrew Michael Vanderpool, of Apt 5E, Country Park Towers, St Michael were having a conversation while seated in a motor vehicle. They were surprised by a man who had his face hidden with a scarf.
The man, who had a firearm, ordered both men out of the vehicle and proceeded to rob them of cash and valuables. During the ordeal, a gunshot was fired and Lyken fell to the ground where he died. The killer fled the scene on foot. Vanderpool was unhurt.
Andrew Michael Vanderpool
“. . . He told us get out the van, come to the front of the vehicle and ‘take off our pants’. My pants was in my hands but uncle was still taking his off. The man went to give uncle a kick and he caught the man’s foot and he shoot uncle in his head,” Vanderpool shared with members of the media on Sunday, as he recounted the moments before Lyken’s tragic death.
Lyken, who owned and managed Eton’s Bakery and Eton’s Variety, located at Beckles Road, also operated the popular bread stall at Weymouth, St Michael close to the Globe Cinema. He employed about six people.
Savoury said the tragedy has rocked Lyken’s family in Guyana, especially his 84-year-old mother Yvonne Lyken who was still in shock.
“It is a tragic loss. It is untimely. My brother certainly didn’t deserve that. There are children who are being deprived of having a father and their lives would never be the same again.
“He would have been the only person that could have given them a good life, being a real father, treating them with love and respect. Don’t care what he died and leave, life would never be the same again. Whatever he had planned for them, it has now been altered,” Savoury said.
The deceased’s mother said her heart has been aching since she got word of Lyken’s death. She shared with Barbados TODAY that the businessman was the third of her 13 children to die.
Yvonne Lyken
The mother said she had a good relationship with her son who, just two months ago, told her to come to Barbados and spend some time with him.
She recalled that he informed her at the time that he had just bought another vehicle and his bread business was progressing well.
“I am feeling it because he does not interfere with persons. He is very kind to everybody. Something is wrong,” the elderly woman said.
The octogenarian lamented that “something just don’t seem right about the way my son was killed”.
“We want his body to come home. All his family is back here and we want him to come home. I can’t deal with coming [to Barbados], so the children would deal with that,” she said.
Yvonne explained that one of her children contacted the Guyana Consulate in Barbados seeking information regarding their loved one’s death.
When contacted, Guyana’s Consul Cita Pilgrim said the Consulate would remain in touch with Lyken’s family in Guyana and update them on any development with the case which is still being investigated by police.
anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb
