A 21-year-old man was on Tuesday sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for the 2008 murder of a 79-year-old Wakenaam, Essequibo Island woman.
Latchman ‘Saramakatoy’ Persaud was found guilty of murdering Dhanwantie, known as `Auntie’, at Sans Souci, Wakenaam between May 25 and 26. The woman was found dead in her home by neighbours who had noticed her front door open and upon checking found her lying on her bedroom floor in a pool of blood.
Justice Winston Patterson handed down the sentence when the trial concluded at the Suddie High Court, stating that the “light sentence” is as a result of Persaud’s age.
The court was told that in a statement given to the police, Persaud said he returned home from a party around 9 pm on May 25 and later ventured to the elderly woman’s house where the front door was not secured. He said he pushed the door open and found Dhanwantie sleeping on the floor and proceeded to rape the woman. The man admitted that the elderly woman struggled but was not strong enough to escape him. He told police that after he committed the act, he placed a pillow under the woman’s head and left her groaning on the floor before he went away.
A post mortem examination would later reveal that the woman died of asphyxiation compounded by blunt trauma.
Dhanwantie lived alone but was being cared for by a woman who would leave late in the afternoon and return each morning. Her death came as a shock to residents who said she stayed mostly indoors and described her as peaceful.
