By Gordon French
Caribbean Net News Guyana Correspondent
Email: gordon@caribbeannetnews.com

GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Three people have been charged in Guyana for killing a woman they claimed was a blood-sucking evil spirit. Two men and a woman were on Wednesday arraigned for murder at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court following the brutal death of the woman.

Rayon Bobb, 28, a cane harvester, and Alita Roberts, 25, both of Bare Root, and Roland Spencer, 41, a contractor, appeared before Magistrate Yohance Cave and were remanded until May 10.

They were charged with the beating death of Radika Singh, a 55-year-old woman of Good Hope. She was surrounded by villagers and beaten to death last Saturday in Bare Root, a small African-Guyanese community in eastern Guyana, because villagers believed she was an evil spirit, similar to a vampire, which sucks the blood of people.

Villagers had related to Caribbean Net News that the woman appeared to be a dark ball with an occasional flicker of fire, traits associated with an "Ole Higue," as told in Guyanese folklore.

However, the woman’s relatives have produced documents confirming that the woman was mentally ill and may have wandered into the village, located some seven miles from her home.

According to folklore, the Ole Higue lives during the day among other villagers, but at night this seemingly harmless old woman removes her skin, places it gently in a calabash and travels across the sky as a ball of fire heading to the home of her intended victim. To enter the home she shrinks herself and enters through the keyhole.

It is believed that the easiest way to catch an Ole Higue is to spill rice grains on the floor in front of your front door. As the Ole Higue enters the house, she will be compelled to count every rice grain. When the home owner awakes the next morning they should find a tired Ole Higue. According to folklore, at this point in time she must be beaten to death with a special broom.

At the scene of the incident, police found a manicole broom and grains of rice. A post mortem was performed on the body of the deceased and her cause of death was given as ‘haemorrhage due to blunt trauma to head’.