A witness yesterday testified that murder accused Colin Alleyne revisited the Montrose neighbourhood where he allegedly murdered pensioner Danrasie ‘Carmen’ Ganesh on the day after the crime.
The testimony formed part of the evidence presented to a 12-member jury yesterday when the trial began before Justice Navindra Singh at the High Court.
Alleyne, of Cemetery Road, Timehri, is charged with murdering Ganesh, 77, on August 1st, 2015, at Montrose, East Coast Demerara.
Six witnesses were called to testify yesterday, including Ganesh Hardiyal, a son of the dead woman, who claimed to have seen the accused peeping into the yard while he stood under a mango tree across the road from the house in which the woman had been killed.
Colin Alleyne
Hardiyal told the court that he had been preparing for work the day after his mother’s murder when he noticed the man. However, unlike other siblings who had seen footage from the CCTV cameras in the home which recorded both the attack and the attacker, he was unable to identify the man.
As a result, he called his younger brother, Manesh Ganesh, also called ‘Ramesh,’ who had seen the footage, to see whether he could have identified the man at the tree.
Manesh, in his evidence-in-chief, told the court that after he received the call from his brother, he made his way outside but did not see anyone.
Nonetheless, he mounted his motorcycle and was heading to the police station when he saw the man, whom he said he had seen on the CCTV footage riding a bicycle through the street.
Manesh told the court that he made a successful attempt to get a better look at the man, which gave him enough confidence to go to the police station to report the sighting. He identified the man on the bicycle as the accused, who sat in the prisoners’ dock
But even with assistance from the police, they were unable to apprehend the suspect on that occasion.
Alleyne’s attorney, while cross-examining Manesh, questioned his confidence in his identification of the accused by suggesting that the CCTV footage had not been that clear and, therefore, he could not have possibly been able to identify the man.
However, Manesh remained adamant that though the footage was not of the highest quality, it was clear enough for him to positively identify the suspect.
Also testifying yesterday were Rex Mangru and Basmattie Ganesh, called ‘Sandra,’ who recounted the series of events that led to the discovery of the woman’s body on August 1st, 2015.
Mangru, a neighbour of the deceased, told the court that he suspected something was amiss on the morning the discovery was made since he had not seen the elderly woman in her yard cleaning that morning as she would have usually done. As the time passed, his concerns grew and he instructed someone to call Ganesh’s daughter to inquire whether something had happened.
This resulted in several persons, including himself and Basmattie Ganesh, venturing to the front of the woman’s yard, where they found that a key had been bent in the padlock that was used to secure the front gate, thus preventing them from entering the yard.
After several attempts to fix the lock, Anthony Ganesh, the dead woman’s grandson, and Hardiyal decided to jump the fence to access the yard.
Mangru noted that after entering the yard, the two men went to the side of the house, where they allegedly saw Ganesh’s body, which prompted them to break the lock on the gate so that others could access the yard.
He further explained that after realising what had happened, he made a phone call to the police.
Meanwhile, the woman’s daughter told the court that after she received a phone call about her mother, she journeyed to the woman’s house, where she started calling for her. After there was no answer, her brother and nephew jumped the gate and later broke the lock, she said, and she found her mother’s body on the floor of the kitchen covered in blood and with injuries to her head.
Not long after, Basmattie said the police arrived and checked her mother’s body. She noted, too, that they were told about the CCTV cameras and made their way to the upper flat of the house, where she accompanied them to view the footage. However, she said she only saw the foot of the alleged killer as she could not watch the rest of the footage.
Meanwhile, the woman said she was present on August 22nd, 2015, at the crime scene when police arrived with Alleyne, who “showed them around the house.”
Basmattie noted that Alleyne demonstrated for the officers what he did while he was in the house, including taking them into the woman’s room and a room on the upper flat.
Similar testimony was given by former Inspector of Police Cedric Gravesande, who had been one of the police officers who had accompanied Alleyne to the house.
According to Gravesande, he had asked the accused to take them to the crime scene and he agreed to do so. He explained that while at the house, Alleyne claimed to have met a man who had driven a silver Spacio that was parked by the fence close to the house, where he allegedly murdered Ganesh.
The court heard that Alleyne told police that he entered the vehicle and had a conversation before picking up a metal bar and entering the house. The court also heard that he went into the woman’s bedroom on the lower flat, before heading upstairs to another room. He subsequently returned downstairs and he entered the kitchen, where he met the elderly Ganesh and dealt her several lashes to the head with the bar.
Gravesande said they were then told by the accused that he picked up some documents from inside the house and handed it over to the man in the Spacio, after which he re-entered the house and ransacked the lower flat before finally exiting and headed to the public road, where he allegedly caught a bus and went home.
Yesterday’s proceedings ended with testimony from Detective Sergeant Rodwell Sarabo, who had taken the caution statement from the accused after he was apprehended and taken into custody.
He also testified to having remove footage from the CCTV cameras in the home on August 24th, 2015.
Sarabo noted, however, that after reviewing the footage, he noticed some inconsistencies between what was seen and the statement given by the accused and therefore Alleyne was taken for further questioning.
However, the tendering of the caution statement as evidence in the trial was objected to by the defence attorney, which resulted in the adjournment for the day.
The case is expected to continue this morning with a voir dire to determine the admissibility of the caution statement.
Stabroek News understands that there are at least six witnesses left to be called by the prosecution, which is being represented by Abigail Gibbs, Teriq Mohamed and Tuanna Hardy.
