Trini teen’s murder… Suspect visited mother day after killing

May 11, 2012 News

– claims men with guns beat other son, gave family two-day deadline to locate alleged killer

By Michael Jordan

The mother of murder suspect Ramesh Sookram admitted yesterday that the fugitive visited her

Murdered: Nikita Ramischand

Soesdyke, East Bank Demerara home on the day after he allegedly killed his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend Nikita Ramischand in Trinidad.
But Dhanwattie Sookram says that she knows nothing about his present whereabouts and is appealing with her son to turn himself in. Ms. Sookram also expressed fear for her safety, alleging that a group of men “with big guns” threatened the family on Wednesday, beating one relative and giving the family a two-day deadline to locate the suspect.
“Wherever he is, I would like him to turn himself in, because right now we are being abused by the police. They are saying I am the mother and I have to know where my son is.”
Twenty-five year-old Sookram, called ‘Alvin,’ has been on the run since April 25 last, when Nikita Ramischand’s mutilated body was found near her home in Maracas, Trinidad.
Local police say that immigration records revealed that the suspect entered Guyana the day after Ramischand was slain.
Police Commissioner (Ag.) Leroy Brumell has expressed confidence that the fugitive will be captured.
According to Ms. Sookram, her son telephoned her at around 23:00 hrs on Wednesday April 25, and said that he was coming home. He then turned up at her Soesdyke, East Bank Demerara home the following day at around 09:00 hrs, allegedly dressed in a short-sleeved jersey and carrying a black bag.
While media reports out of Trinidad suggested that security cameras at the Piarco International Airport showed the suspect with a bandaged hand, Sookram’s mother said that he had no injuries. The woman alleged that he did not appear to be nervous and said nothing about the murder in Trinidad.
Kaieteur News was told that the suspect borrowed his mother’s phone to make a call.
“He ask me to make a phone call, then he pick up his bag and my phone and say he coming back.” According to the mother, he never returned.
She said that at around noon the same day, a group of policemen and persons in civilian clothing visited her home.
“They said that my son slit a girl’s throat and they searched my house and the homes of my two other sons, but didn’t find anything.
“Then my son (Ramesh Sookram) call back Friday (April 27) and I say ‘Alvin, what is the trouble?’ I tell him ‘the people say that you kill a girl in Trinidad’, and he say that he don’t know nothing about that.”
According to the woman, since then, she has been unable to reach her son on the phone he borrowed from her.
Ms. Sookram alleged that shortly after midnight yesterday, about 12 heavily armed men in civilian clothes visited her home. She claimed that after searching her home and those of her two other sons, the men kicked her 23-year-old son after placing him on the ground. They eventually left, but reportedly not before giving the family an ultimatum.
“They say they will come back…they give me today (yesterday) and tomorrow to find the boy, (but) I trying to explain to them that I don’t know where he is.”
Asked if she believed that her son had killed Nikita Ramischand, the mother replied: “Why did he run from Trinidad? Why he run from (my) home? Why he in hiding?”
Dhanwattie Sookram explained that Ramesh had been living in Trinidad for three years. She said that he had told her that he was in love with a girl in Trinidad.
Nikita was the daughter of Trinidad-based attorney, Odai Ramischand, and the niece of Guyana’s Attorney General Anil Nandlall.
Nikita and Ramesh met a little over three months ago, when the teen’s father hired construction workers to work on the family’s property. According to Trinidad media reports, the two spoke frequently on the phone, but things soured when Nikita rejected Ramesh’s marriage proposal. Kaieteur News understands that unknown to the victim’s father, the suspect continued to visit the teen even after he had stopped working at their home.
It is alleged that Ramesh began making threatening phone calls to Nikita, and even scaled a razor-wire fence surrounding the family’s property and began threatening the teen.
Nikita may have further angered the suspect after she started a new relationship.
It is believed that she was walking to her mother’s salon when her assailant dragged her behind a guest house, slashed her throat and stabbed her six times in the abdomen.