A 47-year-old Berbice woman was brutally murdered at her home at Mynderse Street, Schenectady, New York, on Thursday by a jealous boyfriend who cut her throat and later committed suicide.
Reports are that the woman, Rafeena Rahaman, of Line Path, Skeldon, was stabbed to her neck but it is not clear how her boyfriend, 38-year-old Ramcumar Bandhoo, also of Berbice ended his life. A Times Union report quoted authorities as saying that Bandhoo fatally stabbed Rahaman multiple times and cut her throat, then hanged himself with a rope in the closet of a second-floor apartment.
Relatives told Stabroek News last evening that police discovered the bodies in the home shortly after receiving a report that Bandhoo had entered the woman’s home with a knife.
They said too that the two, who had constant domestic rows that would end up violent, were together for about 10 years when Rahaman migrated to America.
They pointed out that she had two children from her previous marriage and that she spent last weekend in New York to attend her son’s wedding.
This, they assumed, must have gotten Bandhoo even more jealous because he know she would meet her ex-husband Imran Alli there.
Alli spoke with FOX23 News, saying he may have been the last person to talk with Rafeena before she was killed.
“I am still in shock. I talked with her ten minutes before she died,” Alli was quoted as saying by FOX23 News. He said Rahaman called him at 9:30 Thursday morning, saying she was fighting with her boyfriend. At 1 pm, she called back and told him her boyfriend got in the house. “I told her to call the cops and I would call her back and we would see about things, but I never heard back from her,” Alli said.
Police say at about 1:30 officers responded for several reports of a man with a knife. When they showed up to the home, they had to force entry and found two people dead inside, one of whom had been stabbed.
Alli said there was a history of domestic violence between Rafeena and her boyfriend. “Just last week he threatened her and told her not to call that cops and said it was him or the kids,” he said.
Alli described Bandhoo as jealous and possessive and said she was trying to get out of the relationship and move back to New York City. “I think that was the confrontation today, he wanted one last chance and she agreed,” he said. “He told her he loved her, but what kind of love is that?”
Meanwhile, the Times Union reported that a neighbour, who declined to give his name, said he had let Rahaman use his cell phone around 1:25pm on Feb. 15 to make an emergency call after she dashed from her house in only her nightgown, frantically screaming, “Somebody help me, he’s going to kill me.”
His wife, who also refused to give her name, said Rahaman always kept to herself. “She was a very sweet person and didn’t bother anybody,” said the neighbour.
The couple tod the newspaper that Bandhoo had left by the time police responded but that they saw the man back at the home days later. They said Rahaman told them he grew angry when she told him she planned to go downstate to visit her children. As a result of the altercation, Bandhoo was charged with unlawful imprisonment and menacing but was released on bail by a City Court judge, authorities said.
