The Lusignan hammer ‘murders’

May 15, 2011 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

---

Lena Somra can tell you almost to the hour when her troubles began. The time was 5 a.m., the day was Sunday, May 8, 2005, and someone was rapping at her front door. The insistent rapping continued even as she rushed to respond.
“Wait nuh, I coming,” she said, certain that the impatient visitor was her 28-year-old son Rajesh, called ‘Sunil,’ who was a minibus conductor and the youngest of her six boys.
But instead of Sunil, Mrs. Somra was greeted by the sight of two men on the front step of her Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara home.The men identified themselves as detectives.
“Happy Mother’s Day,” one of the men said.
But it couldn’t be a good day when two detectives appear at your door early in the morning.
The cop confirmed this by saying: “We come to search your house.” They gave no reason for the request.
Mrs. Somra asked if they had a search warrant. No, the policeman said, but he did have his Guyana Police Force identification.
She eventually let the cops in and the men proceeded to search the premises. They soon completed their search, but yet they still had not revealed the purpose of their visit. Somehow, though, Mrs. Somra sensed that it had something to do with her youngest son.
“What happen with Sunil?” she eventually asked.
After asking her if she “had a good heart”, the detective said: “We suspect a suicide with Sunil and the girl.”
The gist of it was that the detectives suspected that Rajesh Somra, called Sunil, had killed his girlfriend, Rookmanie Singh, a 24-year-old waitress who lived on the Lusignan, East Coast Demerara railway embankment.
They also suspected that the minibus conductor had fled to his mother’s home where he had hidden and maybe taken his own life. The house where Rookmanie lived was empty and police had found no trace of the lovers.
Shortly after the policemen left, the wife of the minibus driver with whom Rajesh Somra worked called Mrs. Somra. Hesitantly, the caller revealed that she had heard that Rajesh had been murdered and his body dumped in a trench at Lusignan.
A frantic Mrs. Somra called her older sons, and they headed to Lusignan. But because the area was flooded by heavy rains, the sons urged their mother to return home by taxi. By then, the story of the couple’s fate was beginning to unfold.
According to reports, at around 03:00 hrs that very day, Rookmanie’s closest neighbours heard her screaming. They then heard the sound of someone falling into the canal at the back of the young woman’s house.
A neighbour then woke Rookmanie’s stepfather, Ramdat Mohan, and told the man that his stepdaughter might have come to harm. Mohan and others contacted the police, who told them to check on Rookmanie.
The waitress was not in the house. But there was blood…lots of it. A search of the canefields behind the house yielded nothing.
By this time the sun was beginning to rise. Recalling that a neighbour had heard a loud splash in the nearby canal, the searchers began to focus in that area. Some of the men dived into the canal, and eventually, one of them came into contact with the semi-nude body of Rajesh Somra.
A few minutes later, the men retrieved Rookmanie’s body about 45 feet away from where they had found Rajesh. She was still clad in her nightgown. Both victims appeared to have been struck in the head with a heavy object.
Detectives who arrived recovered a bloodstained hammer nearby. According to some police reports, a bucket containing water that appeared to be mixed with blood was also recovered.
The few clues seemed to suggest that the lovers had been murdered and dumped into the canal. Robbery was ruled out, and so the primary motive appeared to be jealousy.
But who could have killed them? While relatives of the slain waitress said that the two had been living happily, other residents suggested that the lovers had a sometimes turbulent relationship due to infidelity.
But the case took a surprising turn the following day. Post mortem examinations on the victims revealed that they had both died from drowning. They had not been hammered to death after all.
And police came up with a new and perhaps even more bizarre theory on how the couple had met their death.
It was now suspected that Rajesh Somra had arrived home during the wee hours of Sunday, May 8. According to this theory, he was under the influence of alcohol, and had tried to make love to his girlfriend. Rookmanie refused, and a fight broke out between the couple. A source close to the investigation had told Kaieteur News that it is believed that Rookmanie picked up a heavy object to defend herself and struck Rajesh several times.
When he retaliated, Rookmanie, who could not swim, fled outside and accidentally fell into the canal. The cops believe that Somra, who also could not swim, plunged into the canal to save Rookmanie, where they both drowned.
But not for one minute is Mrs. Lena Somra buying this story. She says that while her son’s death certificate indicated drowning, it also stated that he had been stuck with a blunt object. She believes that the blows would have rendered him unconscious, and that someone then dumped him and his lover into the same canal.
But who could that ‘someone’ be?
Mrs. Somra says that she was told that Rookmanie had a lover who was a member of a paramilitary organisation. She strongly believed that this man killed the couple. She suspects that she might have come face to face with this individual while making enquiries at a police station about the case.
One of the things she had asked the police about was a pair of brown boots that were reportedly found on the steps of Rookmanie’s house on the day of the tragedy.
Rajesh Somra’s mother is adamant that the boots did not belong to her son. She also believes that the bucket of bloody water reportedly found at Rookmanie’s house provides further evidence of foul play.
And six years is too short a time to wash away a mother’s grief.
“Mother’s Day was very rough for me,” she admits. The police say that the matter is still open, but I stopped going at the station (to check) two years ago.
“You can’t get justice in Guyana.”

If you have any information about this or any other unusual cases, please contact Kaieteur News by letter or telephone at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown office. Our numbers are 22-58465, 22-58458 and 22-58452. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address: [email protected].

---

---