GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) – FBI agents were called in yesterday to help investigate the killing of an American consultant for the US government’s overseas aid agency whose bloodied body was found in his hotel room over the weekend.

Staff of Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel found the body of Hubert Daniel Thompson, 55, with severe head injuries late Saturday. Deputy Police Chief Henry Greene said the motive for the killing was unknown.

Hotel staff and police said security personnel knocked on Thompson’s door Friday after hearing reports of screaming, but left when a man who answered said everything was OK.

Security cameras recorded the same unidentified man entering the main hotel lobby Friday afternoon. Authorities were reviewing other video from security cameras, Greene said.

“The footage is not very clear,” he said. “We would have to get it enhanced, perhaps with the help of the FBI.”

US Embassy spokeswoman Christine Meyer told The Associated Press that the FBI would work with local police.

“We offered to have the FBI come here, and the local authorities have accepted,” she said.

Meyer said Thompson, of Staunton, Virginia, was working for the US Agency for International Development on behalf of John Snow Inc, a health care consulting firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. She said it was Thompson’s second visit to the country this year.

Penelope Riseborough, a spokeswoman for John Snow, said Thompson’s death has hit the company hard.

“We are deeply saddened,” she said. “It’s tragic. He was a terrific person.”

Thompson started working for John Snow in 1993 and had worked in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, the Philippines and Tanzania.

“He loved to travel,” Riseborough said. “A lot of people find the travel to be a grind, but he really loved getting out there and meeting people.”

His latest assignment, called “Deliver Project”, was to help the government of Guyana develop a warehouse system for storing retroviral drugs and test kits.

Thompson and co-worker John Smith had been in Guyana since December 1. Smith was expected to return to the United States.