Police yesterday morning recovered the car in Paradise, East Coast Demerara, in which three gunmen escaped after shooting to death 34-year-old Non Pareil businessman, Chandrapaul Persaud.

And the man's wife, Nazeeme Isshack, yesterday closed down their shop vowing to move from the house as soon as her husband was buried. "Too much memory, I can't live here. I don't know how I will go on but I know I can't live here, I have to go on for my children" the grieving woman said yesterday morning at her Lot 259, Non Pareil, East Coast Demerara home. She was at the time surrounded by scores of relatives and friends but appeared to find no comfort in their presence, only wishing that her husband of over ten years was still alive and things would return to normal.

She said the police found the Persaud family car, PJJ 1892, outside a mill in Paradise and it was now parked in the compound of the Cove & John Police Station.

Persaud, also known as 'Ravin' and 'Kero man' was shot and killed by one of the three gunmen after he was thought to have put up a fight by pelting the man with drinks' bottles. His wife also suspects that he may have recognised the man as he travelled throughout the East Coast with his canter truck selling wholesale goods to shops.

The woman recalled that it was minutes to 7 pm when her husband drove into the yard in the same car in which the bandits made their escape. She said he brought home some food and she took it from him and headed to the kitchen along with her two daughters, Nicky, 12 and Nicole, who is three years old. Her husband headed to his canter truck which was parked in the yard to ensure all was well and their nine-year-old son, Nicholas went with him.

Shortly after the woman said she heard her husband calling out for thief but before she could venture outside two masked men armed with "big guns" entered the kitchen and confronted herself and her daughters.

The men demanded cash and jewellery and the woman said she told them they could have anything but begged them not to hurt her family. She said one of the men followed her into the bedroom while the other remained with her daughters in the kitchen.

"I turn to the one in the room and I say 'You all please don't hurt my children' and he tell me, 'We wouldn't hurt them mam,'" the woman said. She then gave him three gold rings, including her wedding ring, a Citizens watch and about $100,000 which he took and pushed in his pockets.

While they were in the room the woman said she heard bottles being pelted and knew right away her husband was putting up a fight with whoever was left outside. She said she knew her husband must have wanted to come into the house to ensure that his family was safe. She said while the bottles were being pelted she heard the man in the kitchen saying, "Kill the f...ing man."

"I run outside and I go on my knees with me hand in de air and I beg dem not to kill my husband. I beg like a small child but then I hear de gunshots and I still didn't believe he dead," the woman said with tears rolling down her cheeks. Even though the men had big guns, the woman said they never pointed the weapons at them but kept them at their sides.

The men then quickly exited the house and the woman said she rushed to turn on the MMC security alarm system and this must have scared the bandits. They abandoned the three bicycles they had come with and jumped into the family's car, which still had the key in the ignition. The woman said when she rushed outside she saw them about to drive through the gate and ran to block them as she felt they were taking her husband hostage.

"I try to stop dem but deh drive away, and is when I turn I see me husband lying on the road next to the bridge bleeding and I start to scream," she said. Her husband was lying on his stomach with both his hands under him.

She said her son had seen when the bandits entered the yard and ran behind the canter truck where he hid.

"All I seeing in my head is my husband lying on the road bleeding, I seeing it over and over. How can I go on now?" the woman asked.

The couple had moved from Enterprise to that location in 2002 and it is there they built their business, opening the shop where they sold wholesale and retail; they also sold kerosene - hence her husband's alias - and gas.

"We work day by day and we build we house," the woman recalled. It was not the first time her husband had faced the barrel of a gun. She recalled that on Christmas Eve night last year her husband was in the hammock on the veranda drinking a Guinness when a man approached and pointed a gun at him ordering him not to move. Instead the man pelted the Guinness bottle at the bandit who fired three shots in his direction, one grazing him on the left shoulder, and when he attempted a fourth shot the gun jammed. Persaud had then seized the opportunity and jumped on the man and the two had had a scuffle before the gunman ran away.

Isshack said prior to that incident her husband had applied for a gun licence, and after the attack he again approached the police for the licence but was told there was no reason for him to receive a weapon.

"He gat business, he does drive and sell and bandit attack him and dem telling he how deh ent see no cause to give him licence. What more cause deh want? I am just fed up of all of this. I can't live here any more," the woman lamented. She said that she and her children would be moving into her relatives' home at Enmore.

"This is it for me, no more business. I not sure how I go support me and my children, but no more business. My husband lived in fear every night when we sleeping and he hear a noise he would get up, and now get dead, for what? Just because he was making a living?"

The police are investigating the killing.