A Crane, West Coast Demerara mother of three died yesterday after being brutally stabbed, allegedly by her husband, who subsequently ingested poison and is currently hospitalised.
Dead is Bibi Zameena Ally also known as ‘Annette’, 34, of Lot 15 Old Road, Crane. The woman was allegedly attacked by her husband Natram Lall, who reportedly stabbed her eight times with a weapon said to be a knife from the kitchen. The duo was said to be retiring to bed at the time of the attack.
The brutal murder, which occurred at the couple’s home early yesterday morning just after midnight, shook the community. Lall, mere days before, had reportedly threatened to kill Ally.
The man is currently a patient at the West Deme-rara Regional Hospital (WDRH) after he ingested something believed to be a poisonous substance.
Ally was the mother of two sons and a daughter, who are 19, 16 and 7 years old.
An inconsolable Rajpattie Persaud, the dead woman’s mother, told Stabroek News yesterday that she cannot say what led to her daughter’s murder. The couple lived together with their children at Persaud’s house up until the fateful incident.
Persaud said that on Tuesday, everything seemed fine with the two and they cooked together in the kitchen. She recounted that while cooking, Ally requested that her husband purchase materials to construct living quarters on the ground floor. The woman said that the couple talked as per normal until ten o clock that night and nothing seemed amiss. She recalled that she last spoke with the two when her son-in-law asked whether she was going to go to sleep to which she responded that she wasn’t sleepy. Nonetheless, she got up and took a sleeping pill and went back to bed.
“The last word I hear she told him was, ‘Ah want to sleep, ah got to go to work in the morning’ and me eye shut away till when I hear she [scream] and she seh, ‘Mommy, mommy’ and by the time me run out and me big grandson run out fuh approach she bedroom, she run out and fall down in front of my bedroom door. I seh she unconscious and decide fuh get the alcohol fuh rub she up. I approach him (Lall) and asked him, ‘What happen’ and he seh, ‘She crazy’. That the word he use to me. That she crazy and she only want to sleep, sleep. Then ah see all the blood start run out from she and then ah see he gat a knife. I didn’t see the knife before then,” she recounted.
“Me keep asking he, ‘What happen’ but I see he turn back fuh go pon the big boy. The big son is 19. The boy, when he realise he father was going to his mother after she fall down, try to stop he but he start to approach me big grandson. After he start going to the boy, me scramble his hand and me hold his hand and me seh, ‘Give me the knife, give me the knife’ and he tek long fuh give me the knife. Me go on me knees, look how all me knees bruise up, and me start to beg he and she, ‘give me the knife, don’t do nobody nothing’ and he give me the knife and ah beg he fuh go outside, leh me look after me daughter. Me nah expect me daughter fuh dead when she fall,” the grief-stricken woman said.
Abuse
Persaud further recounted that after she began pushing Lall out the back door, he started to try to reenter the house but she was able to get the door bolted with assistance from her grandson. Once she was able to get the man out of the house, she ran to her daughter’s aid but according to Persaud, the injured woman was already unconscious.
After this, Persaud alerted the neighbours and called her son who lives in a nearby street. Her son arrived minutes later and with the help of neighbours transported Ally to the WDRH where she was pronounced dead.
Persaud shared that during the course of their 21 years together, the couple had numerous disputes that led to Lall physically abusing his wife. The man, who is a construction worker, has been travelling back and forth from Guyana to Trinidad and Barbados where he has been working. On several occasions after returning, he got into arguments with Ally and according to Persaud, he would tell his family rumours about the woman which would lead to confrontations with those relatives after they showed up where the couple was living.
Despite all of this, neither the domestic abuse nor the harassment from relatives was ever reported to the police. Persaud said that even though she told her daughter to let her accompany her to the police and the probation officer, Ally refused to do so.
Meantime, while she is not sure what led to her daughter’s murder, Persaud believes it stemmed from an argument that happened last Sunday. She said that day, Lall arrived home drunk around 4 pm. He was driving and had been in an accident which resulted in damage to another man’s vehicle’s rearview mirror and had needed money to compensate the driver. The angry driver of the vehicle had followed Lall home and demanded to be paid.
Persaud said that Lall asked Ally to go to the bank and withdraw some money to pay the man but she refused to do so. Lall went himself to make the withdrawal. When he returned home, she said, he continued drinking until 11pm. It was then that he made the threat.
It was not the first time that Lall allegedly threatened to end Ally’s life and he had reportedly turned up at her workplace and made death threats and did so as well at public places like the Vreed-en-Hoop stelling. Ally was employed as a shopkeeper at a business in Kingston, Georgetown.
“Meh go miss she. She guh check me clinic date and say, ‘mommy you nah guh clinic’. If me nah feel good, she guh call me grandson to buy a Vitamalt fuh me or [ask], ‘mommy you short ah anything’. She tell me, ‘Mommy me nah happy’, and me tell she go by she sister or she other sister but she seh she ah study she children them because them nah eat all kind of thing. Me never tell she fuh leave he. Me does treat he like a son. Me nah know he had this intention,” Persaud cried.
Ally’s older brother, Safraz Ally, who was there during the time this newspaper visited, recounted that he received a call from Ally’s daughter minutes after midnight yesterday telling him he needed to come right away because something was wrong with his sister.
“…When I come here, I see the fellow (Lall) underneath the house and I seh, ‘What happen bai’. He open the gate fuh me and I keep asking him what happening but he seh go upstairs and see; that them lock he outside. He didn’t say nothing else. I didn’t check back on he, I hustle to see what going on upstairs after I hear them screaming. When I go now, I see me sister lie down on the ground bleeding. Right away I start to panic because is the first time I witnessing something like that. I put she in one of the neighbour’s car and we carry she at the hospital. I didn’t know she was dead already. I though she was just unconscious,” Safraz said.
He recounted that he had gone to get the police at the Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station when his wife called him to give him the news of his sister’s death. “Is nah no kind of sharp knife. Is a bread knife he use but the tip of it pointed. The police find the knife at the house. I tell the police that this man (Lall) ain’t gone nowhere far because his car still deh here (at the residence). We decide to check at the neighbours them,” Safraz recalled.
Lall was apprehended by the police after a neighbour notified the police that he was hiding at his home. It was while he was being arrested that the police realised that he had ingested something and needed to be taken to the hospital.
Safraz also recalled that Sunday afternoon when Lall visited his home, the man told him that he was going to kill his sister. Safraz said he got angry and wanted to deal with him since then but his wife stopped him and told him that Lall was drunk and he should instead wait until he was sober.
On Monday, when he saw him again, Lall apologised for threatening to kill Ally and told Safraz that he meant none of it. Safraz said the last time he saw Lall before the murder was on Tuesday when he came to drop Ally and the children off at his home where they were having a birthday party for his daughter.
When Stabroek News visited the WDRH yesterday, Lall was writhing in pain under the watch of the police. He had no idea his relatives were present and after several attempts to get his attention, they stopped. A cousin, who asked to remain anonymous, said that both the man’s parents are deceased and besides his children, his only other immediate relatives are his two brothers. Lall grew up at Coglan Dam on the West Bank of Demerara.
Ally’s body is currently at the WDRH awaiting an autopsy. Police are continuing their investigations.
