The husband, the suspected killer and a taxi driver who transported him to and from the scene are all in police custody. They were arrested more than 12 hours after the landlady of the Hague house discovered Saymar’s bloody body.
The suspected killer and taxi driver, Saymar’s relatives told Stabroek News yesterday, have since confessed to police. The husband, according to the hit-man, paid him a sum of money to kill his reputed wife. However, the husband has since told police that he only hired the man to threaten Saymar since he was leaving the country.
In the beginning, relatives reported, the husband had denied knowing the other two accused. Even after police discovered evidence in their cellular phone call records that the husband and the suspected killer had been in constant contact for up to an hour before and about five minutes after the brutal attack.
It wasn’t until parts of his story began clashing, relatives explained, that the husband finally admitted knowing the men and came up with, what they described as a “flimsy excuse”, that he’d only meant to scare Saymar.
Saymar, 23, started renting the upper flat apartment in January. At the time, her foster father Gewanlall Asaram said, her husband was in Canada. The man travels back and forth every two to three months. While the husband was nice to the family, Asaram stated, his foster daughter often told her mother (his reputed wife) about abuse she suffered.
“She (Saymar) and her mother would hide this from me,” Asaram said. “They were afraid of how I would react…once, she told us that if she left the relationship then she would be dead.”
The husband, he said, was very possessive and an extremely jealous person who never gave Saymar any breathing space. Asaram stressed that he and his family believe that the husband was capable of paying someone to kill Saymar.
On May 16 Saymar and the husband visited a popular West Coast nightspot. It was there, Asaram said he later learnt, an incident occurred and provided the foundation for an explosive argument which followed between the couple.
Saymar’s reputed husband, Asaram said, has a nasty tempter. While at the night spot the husband accused a group of men of following him. An argument subsequently erupted and the husband rushed to his Hilux Surf, retrieved his licensed firearm and proceeded to threaten the men with it. While this was happening, Asaram related, Saymar had gotten into the Surf. The husband rushed back to the vehicle, he was already in a rage, and drove with high speed intending to hit the men who were now standing by their car.
“She (Saymar) told me that he slammed into this car and the men standing there barely managed to get out of the way. After he connected with the smaller vehicle it spin a couple time and he lost control and plunged into a trench,” Asaram said.
Saymar was not wearing her seatbelt at the time and was banged about some during the incident. She was helped out of the vehicle, Asaram said, but her husband was hauled out and beaten by the men. The next day (May 17) was Asaram’s birthday and his foster daughter visited their Tuschen Housing Scheme, East Bank Essequibo home. Her hand was in a sling, he recalled, but other than that she was herself.
Her family saw her last on Wednesday.
“There was nothing wrong with her,” the older Saymar recalled. “She was herself, she seemed happy and she didn’t tell me about if anything was wrong but later on the phone she told me that (her husband) had slammed her head against the bed head.”
Threats
Saymar met her reputed husband through his cousin two years ago. The two, relatives said, immediately hit it off and moved in with each other shortly after.
For the first six months of their relationship, Saymar’s mother recalled, they lived with them in Tuschen. During this time, none of Saymar’s relatives recall seeing the husband hit her. However, they said the couple constantly argued.
“She wanted certain things and she knew he could give them to her…… But he was always tight with everything and never wanted to get her anything,” the woman said.
After about 6 months of sharing the small house at Tuschen the husband stated that living there was too confining and he bought a house in Greenwich; a private housing scheme a short distance away. It was at the Greenwich house, Saymar’s relatives said, that the abuse started.
Her mother said that it was while Saymar lived there that she started complaining about her husband hitting her. Later, Saymar confided to her mother that he’d threatened to “blow her head off” and said that if she ever thought of leaving him or tried to run away then he’d find her and make her life miserable. If he couldn’t find her then he’d make her family miserable.
“She [Saymar] told me that she was afraid and that she couldn’t leave him for fear that he would try to hurt us,” she said.
Last December, before her husband again returned to England, he sold the Greenwich house and said that he’d done so because he’d been offered a price higher than what he’d paid for it. Saymar moved home for a short while and then in January she rented the Hague apartment. It was around this time she started attending hairdressing classes. Her husband returned to Guyana in February.
Still alive
In a press release that day police had reported that they were investigating the circumstances surrounding the woman’s murder which occurred at about 2 am. Investigations, they’d said, revealed that neighbours heard screams coming from Saymar’s apartment and subsequently saw a man leaving.
The woman’s landlady, who lives in the lower flat apartment, told Saymar’s relatives that the first screams to be heard from the upper apartment were ignored. Neighbours, the woman related, thought that she and the husband were fighting as was customary.
It wasn’t until they heard the woman shouting the words “help”, “rape” and “murder” that they finally became alarmed. Before anyone could get to the apartment the attacker had already exited. Saymar’s landlady was the first person to gain access to her apartment. There she found Saymar lying on her stomach with multiple wounds to her back.
Saymar was still alive. The landlady, relatives related, said she rushed over to the bleeding woman and asked her if she could speak and then asked who had attacked her. The injured woman gasped two phrases describing her attacker; those were the last words she was heard saying. The apartment in which she lay was thoroughly ransacked and relatives believe that this was done to make it look like a robbery.
The landlady immediately rushed to call the police. Less than five minutes after Saymar was attacked her reputed husband showed up.
“The landlady said she immediately rushed to him and told him what had happened…she said that he didn’t seem shocked and took his time reversing, parking and then locking the vehicle,” Saymar’s mother said.
The husband, according to reports, then went upstairs, walked to where Saymar lay bleeding on the floor, looked at her briefly and then left. Saymar, the landlady later told relatives, was still breathing at this time.
“She was alive! She was alive on the ground and he walk out and lef’ she,” Saymar’s grieving mother cried.
No effort was made to take Saymar to the hospital until police arrived at the scene shortly after. It was they who rushed her to the Leonora Cottage Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
When police apprehended the men, $200,000 was found on the suspected killer. Relatives believe it is the money the husband paid the man to do his dirty work. There have been three murders this year which fall into the category of contracted killing and two more which are suspected to be such cases.
“He (the husband) tell the police that before this thing happened he gave her $300,000 and he tried to make it sound like this man stole the money from the house,” the woman said. “I don’t believe for a minute that he would give her that amount of money…he used to give her $200 a day when he was in the country for her to go to classes so why all of a sudden he going to give her so much one time?” The elder Saymar questioned.
An autopsy will be conducted on the woman’s body shortly and following this, charges will most likely be instituted. “I don’t have money to fight for justice,” the sobbing woman said, “but I just trusting in the man above me for some help.”