Death of Guyanese nurse… Further suspicions arise of Nigerian husband

Jul 11, 2013 News

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Even as scores of questions continue to be raised about the mysterious death of a Guyanese nurse in India; Guyanese Ambassador, Ronald Jairam Gajraj, reported from the High Commission of Guyana in New Delhi that there has been no official communication from the local police or any other relevant authority to the High Commission in relation to the matter.

The Ambassador, however, noted that in the event of any development he will advise accordingly.
The death of the 37-year-old nurse Lucinda Solomon-Lee, formerly of 591 East Ruimveldt, had been reported to her family members, via telephone, three days after her passing by her Nigerian husband.
The woman reportedly migrated to India in December 2009 where she had been residing with her husband even before their marriage last year.
The man, identified as Austine Molar, after contacting the family by phone, subsequently sent a well detailed Facebook message to the nurse’s sister, Anngelina Holligan, describing the events that that led up to her death.
According to the message, the woman had been hospitalised two months prior to her death to undergo an ovarian surgery. He identified three hospitals in India where she underwent the surgery.
“After the operation they could not follow up on her properly on treatment then I took her to the last hospital called NAIR hospital where she passed on 4th,” the message stated.
With the assistance of Tirath Singh, First Secretary of the Indian High Commission Guyana on Tuesday, contact was made with the NAIR hospital which revealed that a woman, listed a Lucinda Aisting Nichols, had been taken to the facility by four Nigerians and died at 12 AM on July 5.
According to the staff on duty at the hospital, the body is currently being kept in the facility’s mortuary.
Although the name provided by the hospital’s staff does not positively match the nurse’s name, family members have no doubt that it is their loved one that is lying in cold storage.
They have since been soliciting the assistance of local media houses to publicize their need of monetary contributions in order to have the body brought home for burial, an operation which is premised to cost in excess of $2 M.
In addition to bringing Solomon-Lee’s body home for burial, the family is out to have their questions of what caused the woman’s death answered.
Judging from the rare occasions of interaction with her Nigerian husband, it is their firm belief that her death involved something other than a medical ailment.
Also suspicious of the role the nurse’s Nigerian husband played in the matter is her friend of countless years, Andrea Browne.
Browne said that when she learnt of the matter via an article published by this newspaper on Monday, although she had not expected that her friend really died, she was not “too surprised” because of the suspicions that she held of the Nigerian.
The woman related that during Solomon-Lee’s 15 years of service at Palms Geriatric Home, the two had become very close. “Even matters that she didn’t tell her mother, she told me. She was like a little sister to me,” Browne said.
The woman said that she became highly suspicious of the nurse’s Nigerian husband even before she had migrated to India and had long suspected that something was wrong in their marriage.
Browne explained that it was after her separation from her first husband that Solomon-Lee met Austine, whom she described as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
She said that the couple met after another Guyanese nurse, mentioned in Monday’s article as the nurse’s friend, had migrated to India and expressed to Solomon-Lee via text messages that “life is better there”.
According to Browne, the other nurse had been in a relationship with a Nigerian man while in India and so Solomon-Lee requested that she “get a Nigerian man for her too”.
Browne said that following the introduction, the Nigerian would “text her all day using nice words” and after some time urged her to join him in India.
“I encouraged her to invite him to Guyana but she said she wanted to go,” Browne said.
The woman recounted that it is due to the events that followed, she became very suspicious of the Nigerian. She said that the man had sent an in-transit ticket for Solomon-Lee to travel to India; but it was revealed only after the nurse had begun her journey that all the relevant payments had not been made and so she was forced to return home.
Browne said that the nurse later learnt that Austine could not have made the payments as he was in jail.
She said that the man refused to provide the reason for him being in jail. “He keep telling her ‘When u come up u gon know’”.
Browne explained that the man was released from jail some “one and a half months” later, after which he sent a “straight ticket” for her to travel to the Asian country.
The woman related that after Solomon-Lee had migrated, things appeared normal but soon became strange since on several occasions during phone calls the woman would say, “I can’t talk now…he deh right here”.
Browne said that she got the impression that the man had restricted the nurse from using the phone.
Immediate family members of the nurse revealed that they had also experienced similar situations in which the nurse would state that she is unable to speak in her husband’s presence.
“This is not like Lucinda; she would have communicated. It had to be some kind of problem she went in, he had to do something to her. I don’t believe she was sick. I knew her as a very healthy person,” Browne said.
Added to the fact that the other Guyanese nurse had fled India and that the man she was living with is reportedly in jail, Browne is even more convinced that “Lucinda walked straight into the devil’s hand.”
According to Browne, the nurse was a very kind and trustworthy person.
“And she loved to laugh… It really touched me that she lost her life this way. When I took her to the airport, I didn’t know it was the last time I was seeing her.”
Browne said that it is her desire to see her friend before she is buried. Therefore, together with family members, she is asking the public to render some assistance to bring the body back to Guyana. The family can be contacted on 225-4566, 694-3729 and 662-5791.

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