A day after repeated calls to her phone and visits to her house went unanswered, relatives discovered the battered body of 70-year-old Carmen Ramjattan at her Phillipine home on Wednesday night.Ramjattan's son Dennis, along with police, found her body slumped over in her bathroom with both hands and feet tied with ropes and her mouth covered with duct tape.
Her gold-coloured Nissan Almera, which police said was equipped with a Car Search locator, was still missing up to yesterday afternoon leading them to believe the murder was motivated by robbery.However, nothing else was stolen and when police arrived at the scene, the house was locked with no signs of forced entry. Investigators suspect Ramjattan might have known her killer.
Around 11 pm on Wednesday, police from the San Fernando CID led by ASP Gaffar, Insp Williams and Sgt Persad went to Ramjattan's Sunkist Drive home after Dennis Ramjattan reported that his mother had not been heard from or seen since Tuesday afternoon.As the police climbed onto the second-storey balcony, they saw Ramjattan's body in a seated position on the floor, with blood oozing from several lacerations.
Eye on Crime 2013 02 21
A depressed Dennis Ramjattan, embraced by his wife Rasheeda Ali-Ramjattan, told reporters yesterday that they left their Diego Martin home immediately after hearing that his mother's home was in darkness and her front gate was open and her car missing."That is a no-no for us here. We don't do that at all," Dennis said."We usually call her in the morning and the night-time. We called her on Tuesday night on her cellphone and landline and even asked one of the neighbours to ring the doorbell to ask her to check her phones.
"He called back and told me that her house was totally dark and the gate was left open."
Dennis said his mother never seemed troubled and had no enemies.He said Sunkist Drive was once a place where people could leave their doors open and were safe from criminals.
Asked if he felt his mother was killed by someone she knew, he said: "Right now we can run a million speculations. Honestly, we don't know but it's between only herself and God who can say what really happened.
"No one takes murder seriously until it hits close to their home. We never thought this could have happened here. It just goes to show that criminals just have a blatant disregard for the law, and until we stop the talking and do more action, it will continue and get worse."Ramjattan's next-door neighbour Michelle Sirju said recently strange people had been walking through the community, which had never happened before.
She said it was puzzling how someone could have entered the house to kill Ramjattan, especially since no one around heard any commotion at the house.