In the isolated Laluni community, on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway, two children watched as their father severely broadsided their mother with a cutlass on Monday leaving her clinging to life.
The woman, Ramdarrie Rajpattie, 57, also called “Auntie Idoe” and “Queen” eventually succumbed to her wounds three days later at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
Her reputed husband, Bertie Baicho, has been on the run since beating her at the home of their daughter in the Laluni Creek area.
The couple’s daughter, Seema Rajpattie, 22, told Stabroek News yesterday that her mother went to her house around 4 pm on Sunday and told her that she and Baicho had a fight. Ramdarrie, she said, spent the night at her house.
At about 7 am on Monday, Seema said, her slightly intoxicated father showed up and approached his reputed wife. “Yuh sleepin’ yet?” Baicho asked the woman. Before she could respond the man started to beat her about the body with a cutlass he was carrying, she recounted.
Seema said her younger brother, Joseph Baicho, tried to stop his father but the elder Baicho raised the cutlass and threatened to chop him. “She get nuff licks,” Seema said.
“In she belly, in she back, in she neck,” the woman said. According to her, her father used both the cutlass and his hands to beat her mother.
After the beating, the man fled and Ramdarrie was left lying on the floor as her children dashed for help. Ramdarrie was then carried out of the trail, placed in a cousin’s vehicle and rushed to the East Bank Demerara Regional Hospital.
The woman was complaining of severe pains particularly in the region of her neck.
Later that day, Ramdarrie was transferred to the GPH where she was admitted. The woman remained a patient in the Female Open Ward until her death on Thursday.
“He does always drink and beat she,” Seema said. “Since ah growing is da he doing,” she added.
Her mother’s last words to her eldest child, Seema said, was an instruction to “jail yuh father”. The woman insisted that she and her siblings wanted to see their father behind bars for what he had done.
Other relatives said that the two argued frequently. Both the deceased and her reputed husband, they said, were heavy drinkers. “Up to Sunday I see she lying down pun de road as I de coming home from church,” a relative said.
The woman, relatives said, was well known in the community and like her husband did odd jobs in the community. Ramdarrie, according to relatives, suffered more than three decades of abuse but never reported any of the incidents to police.
Ramdarrie was the mother of 16 children, 12 of whom are still alive. She also leaves to mourn 27 grandchildren.
When Stabroek News visited the Laluni Creek area yesterday afternoon relatives were preparing for a wake.
