Indranie Sugrim managed to dial the mobile phone of her 11-year-old daughter yesterday morning moments before she was brutally knifed to death in her Cummings Lodge home, allegedly by the man she had shared an on-and-off relationship with for the past five years.
The child related to relatives yesterday the chilling tale of hearing her mother’s terrified voice on the phone as she cried out `Paul guh kill me’ just around 11 am.
“She then tell me Paul get a long knife and she start to holler and then like a hear the phone fall down,” the child said to relatives at her mother’s Lot 502, Ninth Field, Cummings Lodge, Block ‘Y’ home.
The child was visiting her grandmother a few streets away from their home and she immediately raced home and found her mother lying in the bedroom of the home they shared.
Reports say that Shawn Paul Singh, with whom her mother shared a relationship, was seen strolling unhurriedly out of the yard. At the time he had a sledgehammer, spade and hammock in his possession.
The child then ran to the home of her aunt, Radha Singh, a short distance away and told her that her mother had been killed.
Singh told Stabroek News that before the child ran to her she knew something had happened to her sister as she had heard her hollering for her but she was afraid to venture into the house.
“I didn’t want go because I hear she ask he wah he doing in she house with a knife and den she call for me and tell me how he guh kill she and den a hear she say ‘Mala (Radha’s call name) a guh dead.’ But I frighten to go because he done ain’t like me head and I say if I go he guh kill me too,” the woman said.
She said after her niece gave her the tragic news she immediately with the assistance of a neighbour travelled to the police station and reported the matter.
The sister said that Indranie was in an abusive relationship with the man as according to her “de two a dem never live good.” She said the man did not live with her sister but he visited frequently and even though she had attempted to leave him he refused to leave.
“He nah tek lef and you know like he use to bully she because only she and the lil girl live. Plenty time she try fuh lef he but he not going,” the woman said.
She said her sister had made several reports to the Sophia Police Station and added that up to Saturday she believes she had made another report as she had seen Indranie riding to the station. One time after a beating, the man was charged but Singh said she believes that the woman later begged for him because she is unclear as to what happened to the matter.
She related that the man, who according to the woman’s daughter worked in the interior from time to time, had a brother working at the police station who would usually beg Indranie to end the matter.
According to the woman, earlier in the day she had seen Indranie in the yard and later she saw the man enter. Her sister usually ensures that both of her gates are locked but had for some reason left one of the gates open and the man choose that opportunity to enter.
She feels that after her sister would have reported the man to the police on Saturday she may have once again attempted to end the relationship and that may have triggered the brutal attack.
Budge
Meanwhile, residents yesterday complained that the police officers who visited the scene did not seem interested in going after the woman’s alleged attacker.
“The man who tek me to the station say ‘come leh we go and find deh man’ but dem three police dat went here didn’t budge, one a dem could a stay and two coulda go and try to find the man because she done dead already. Wah all three staying fah?” the woman questioned.
She said the man walked through several yards of persons living behind his home and they allowed him as they were not aware he had allegedly killed the woman.
“He just tell dem how he and she had problems and how he leaving,” the woman said, adding that the relatives now believe that he may have made plans to travel into the interior.
Yesterday, a number of relatives gathered at the woman’s house mourning her death and reminiscing on her life. Apart from the 11-year-old, the woman was also mother to a 20-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy. Her son lives in Trinidad and the other daughter lives with her grandmother. Relatives said the woman was married to the father of her younger daughter but he died several years ago.
This latest murder, which came on the day Guyana joined the world in observance of the Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women, is just another added to a long list of women who have been murdered or maimed by their partners in recent months.
The most recent case was that of Joy Mayers who was chopped several times and her left hand severed by a man with whom she had ended a 14-year relationship. On November 15 sixteen-year-old Zaleena Shaddick also called `Zal’ and `Bibi’ of Kumaka, Region One, North West District was murdered by Ronnie Ramitt Jnr, who later took his life by hanging. Shaddick, who was stabbed in her yard by the man, had reportedly rebuffed his advances.
And 42-year-old Allison Bowen was on October 14 stabbed fourteen times at her Lot 1 Goedverwagting, East Coast Demerera home. Her partner, Alex Douglas, with whom she was attempting to end an eight-year abusive relationship, has since been charged with her murder.
