Acquaintances express shock at shooting deaths in Georgia
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Posted 7:55PM on Wednesday, January 29, 2003
GEORGETOWN, GUYANA - Acquaintances and former co-workers expressed shock Wednesday at the shooting deaths of a Guyanese man, his wife and three sons at their home in Georgia. <br>
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Police in suburban Atlanta said they were treating the case as an apparent murder-suicide, though they haven't said who pulled the trigger. <br>
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In the family's apartment Tuesday, police found the bodies of 33-year-old Ian Willabus, a freelance writer for CNN International, his 32-year-old wife, Diane, and three young sons. <br>
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The boys, ages three, five and ten, were from the man's previous marriage, and Willabus had recently brought them from Guyana. <br>
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Willabus worked in the north-coast South American country as a journalist in the 1990s, first for national radio and later as a reporter and anchor for state-run Guyana Television and Broadcasting Company. <br>
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Neighbors and acquaintances said Willabus left Guyana about five years ago to work as a flight attendant on the now-defunct Guyana Airways. He later settled in Atlanta. <br>
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Rawle Dundas, a close friend who once worked with him as a flight attendant, said Willabus was regarded as bright and articulate, though he had a temper. <br>
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Willabus last visited Guyana in late December, when he covered the funeral of former President Desmond Hoyte. Colleagues said he also was preparing a piece for CNN on a recent rise in crime in Guyana. <br>
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Relatives, who declined to be interviewed at length, said Atlanta police are in contact with his first wife, Michelle Willabus, the mother of the three children. She wasn't immediately available for comment.