The body of a woman was yesterday discovered tied up and with marks of violence in her ransacked Enmore, East Coast Demerara home and a tracker dog later led police to the home of a man with whom she had an ongoing feud.
Dead is Rhampattie Ramsundar, 66, called ‘Auntie Daro,’ of Lot 88 Second Street, Newtown, Enmore, East Coast Demerara.
According to police, Ramsundar’s body was found around 10:45 am in the kitchen of her home, which had been ransacked. Police said she was found with “her hands tied and marks of violence about her body.” The body is at the Lyken’s Funeral Home awaiting a post-mortem examination.
Ramsundar lived alone.
Police spent more than five hours combing the area for clues yesterday. A team of crime scene experts and a tracker dog came from the city and the dog led ranks to a house a short distance away but no one was at home.
The woman’s sister, Indra Puran, who recently arrived from overseas, told Stabroek News that the animal stopped opposite a house where a man who has been feuding with Ramsundar lives. She said that she would usually communicate with her sister on a daily basis and she would often complain about the man and she made numerous reports to police about him. A neighbour said that Ramsundar told her that she had rented a house to the man and he was always calling her on the phone and troubling her.
The woman complained to her as recently as last month about the man. It is unclear if the police were able to locate him.
Meanwhile, Puran said that she last spoke with her sister on Monday night and they made arrangements to meet the following morning around nine. Puran said that after her sister failed to show up, she rang her phone several times but got no answer. Subsequently, she contacted residents of the area, who on checking found that Ramsundar’s lights were on, which was unusual. “I knew right away that something was wrong because she don’t sleep with lights. So, I decided to come down and check,” she said, while adding that she immediately travelled from Plaisance. At the Enmore address, Puran said, they found a side door unlocked on the upper flat of the two-storey house. She said that the lock was not broken and pointed out that the building is well-grilled.
Fearing the worst, the woman said that she and neighbours entered through the unlocked door into the house, in search of her sister. They were confronted by a ransacked interior. “When I go inside, the bedroom door was open, which was not regular. So, when I looked under her netting, she wasn’t there but everything was tumbled in there,” she said.
According to Puran, they searched the remainder of the upper flat and then decided to go below. Puran said that she then decided to use an inner step which leads to the ground floor. “When I go through that door and go downstairs she was lying in front of the fridge with her two hands tie and they take something and throw it over her body,” she said, while adding that it appeared as though she had been strangled since there was something around her neck. She said that the refrigerator door was open and everywhere was ransacked.
The police were later called.
According to Puran, last week Ramsundar collected $600,000 for her. Puran, who resides in New York, explained that her sister “does do a business for me. She does go down to town and collect my money for me.” Ramsundar had given some of the money to Puran’s driver and was supposed to deliver the remainder to her sister yesterday. The money was missing, Puran said, while explaining that her sister would have packed the money in her bag since the night before. However, when they checked Ramsundar’s purse, only $200 was there.
A neighbour told Stabroek News that a strange noise woke her up around 03:30hrs and when she peeped out she noticed that the lights at Ramsundar’s bottom flat were on, while the side door on the upper flat was open.
The woman said she did not think much of it because the elderly woman would occasionally use her outhouse. She called for her but got no answer. Recalling the incident, the woman said that the perpetrator/s might have still been in the house. She said when she looked out back about an hour later, the opened door was closed.
No one else recalled hearing noises during the night.
The resident said that she last saw the elderly woman around 6 pm on Monday and all seemed well with her.
Many of her neighbours described Ramsundar as a pleasant person.
