Sascha Wil­son

The bru­tal stab­bing of 68-year-old Pat­sy Ram­cha­ran by a close fe­male rel­a­tive has left her rel­a­tives heart­bro­ken and con­fused.

Ram­cha­ran suf­fered 70 wounds while her hus­band was sprayed with pep­per spray to pre­vent him from help­ing her dur­ing the at­tack at their White Trace, St Mary’s Vil­lage, Moru­ga home on Sun­day.

Ac­cord­ing to rel­a­tives, the 38-year-old sus­pect is a US cit­i­zen and US Marines vet­er­an and shared a close re­la­tion­ship with Ram­cha­ran.

Four months ago, Ram­cha­ran re­turned home af­ter vis­it­ing the sus­pect, her sev­en-year-old daugh­ter and hus­band at their Louisiana home and the sus­pect re­turned to T&T with her.

Try­ing to hold back the tears, Ram­cha­ran’s hus­band Jim Ram­cha­ran, 78, yes­ter­day re­called that they had planned to go back with the sus­pect to Louisiana to spend Christ­mas with the sus­pect and her fam­i­ly.

“There was no ar­gu­ment,” he said.

Ram­cha­ran said he was cut­ting up chataigne in the gallery while his wife was cook­ing lunch on Sun­day.

He said the sus­pect was “ole talk­ing and laugh­ing” with him. How­ev­er, not long af­ter, he heard his wife bawl out “Oh God, Oh God.”

Jim said his wife then ran in­to the porch.

“When I get up, I see blood run­ning down by she neck and (name called) had a knife in her hand. She say, ‘You don’t come, you don’t come’ and she start spray­ing me down with a pep­per spray,” Jim re­called.

He said he ran out­side to alert the neigh­bours and get help. By then, he said the sus­pect had tak­en Ram­cha­ran back in­to the house, locked the doors and con­tin­ued stab­bing her. He said the neigh­bours called out to the sus­pect to open the door but she re­fused.

When the po­lice ar­rived about ten min­utes lat­er, they used a sledge­ham­mer to force the door open. His wife was found cov­ered in blood and slumped in on a chair. The sus­pect’s hands were cov­ered in blood. The po­lice seized a bloody brown knife.

“She (Ram­cha­ran) was still bawl­ing ‘oh God, oh God’. We called the am­bu­lance and they said they could not come right now.”

He said they wrapped her in a sheet and rushed her to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

“We had no quar­relling, no hard talk­ing. It just hap­pened in a split sec­ond,” he lament­ed. Ram­cha­ran’s sis­ter Sher­ma Bap­tiste re­called that when she spoke to the sus­pect, she said, “They didn’t want to give me what I want.”

How­ev­er, Bap­tiste said she had no idea what she meant. She said the sus­pect served in the US Marines for about 12 years and re­tired three years ago.

Asked if she may have had post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, she said, “I can­not say. Like some­thing just tripped her off. That was not nat­ur­al. She was so calm when I spoke to her, when I say what you do.”

She de­scribed the sus­pect as a peace­mak­er.

“I can’t un­der­stand what could have led her to do that. I know she not that type of per­son. I not blam­ing her,” Bap­tiste said.

How­ev­er, she ad­vised peo­ple ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems to talk about it and not keep it bot­tled up in­side. Ram­cha­ran and Jim cel­e­brat­ed their 22nd-an­niver­sary last month but they had no chil­dren to­geth­er. How­ev­er, Ram­cha­ran had two chil­dren and sev­er­al grand­chil­dren.

An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done lat­er this week. Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.