Deadly obsession with a Trinidadian girl

Aug 04, 2013 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

Eighteen-year-old Nikita Ramischand never saw her stalker as she headed towards the Casa de Belize, a salon located inside the compound of her father’s sprawling mansion in at LP 46 Maracas Royal Road, Maracas, St. Joseph, Trinidad.
Reports of events that unfolded on Wednesday, April 25, 2012, indicated that before she could enter the salon, someone dragged her behind a guest house on the compound. Nikita’s assailant then slashed her throat and stabbed her six times in the abdomen.
The killer then fled.
When Nikita failed to arrive at the salon, her mother began calling her cell phone. When the calls went unanswered, the woman, her husband and other relatives began searching for Nikita.
They eventually found her bloodied body behind the salon.
Detectives believed that the killer, most likely male, had scaled a ten-foot razor-edged wire fence, located on the northern side of the family home, where he hid and waited for Nikita. Bloodstains were reportedly found on the fence.
Nikita Ramischand was a second-year ACCA student of the School of Business and Computer Sciences (SBCS), in Trinidad. She was also the daughter of Guyana-born, Trinidad-based attorney Odai Ramischand.
Questioning close family members, the detectives soon identified a prime suspect.
He was 25-year–old Ramesh Sookram, a Guyanese construction worker who had done some work for the slain girl’s father.
And he reportedly had a motive. Ramesh and Nikita had reportedly struck up a relationship in 2010, when Nikita was just 16. They reportedly concealed the relationship from Nikita’s father.
In January, 2012, Nikita’s father hired construction workers to renovate his property and the two lovers continued their relationship.
The two reportedly spoke frequently on the phone.
But by March 2012, the relationship had soured. When Ramesh reportedly asked Nikita to get married, she refused.
The jilted man allegedly began making threatening phone calls to Nikita. In early April, he had reportedly entered the family property after scaling the razor-wire fence.
He reportedly confronted Nikita and began threatening her, but eventually left after she threatened to call the cops.
Media reports out of Trinidad suggest that the Guyanese construction worker became more incensed when his ex-girlfriend started another relationship. Relatives believe that he began to stalk Nikita.
But while the Trinidadian police had a suspect in mind, the alleged killer, Ramesh Sookram, was nowhere to be found.
Closed-circuit television footage at Piarco International Airport, reportedly showed the suspect in company with a cousin before he boarded a Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL) flight to Guyana.
One of his hands was bandaged and police believe that he injured the limb while scaling the fence topped with razor wire after committing the murder.
Immigration records in Guyana revealed that Sookram entered Guyana the day after Nikita’s murder.
He was accompanied by a 16-year-old cousin.
Sookram allegedly called the slain teen’s mother from an unlisted number the day after the murder. He reportedly insisted that he had not murdered Nikita and that he only learnt of the incident in the newspapers. He is said to have made several other calls to the grieving mother.
Dhanwattie Sookram, the suspect’s mother, told me that Ramesh had 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. She denied that he had any injuries and said that her son had not appeared to be nervous. He had reportedly said nothing about the murder in Trinidad.
According to Ms. Sookram, her son borrowed her phone to make a call. He reportedly left with the phone and never returned. Ms. Sookram claims he called her on Friday, April 27, 2012. According to her, she has not seen or heard from him since. She said that police ranks twice searched her home and the homes of her two other sons, but found no trace of the fugitive suspect.
At the time, Ms. Sookram also claimed that the family was receiving death threats via phone from someone who accused them of harbouring the suspect.
Mrs. Sookram insisted that she was unaware of her son’s whereabouts, and appealed for him to surrender.
“Wherever he is, let him give himself up, because I can’t take this anymore.”
But Kaieteur News has received numerous calls from individuals who claimed that the suspect was hiding out near a relative’s Soesdyke home.
Back then, local police officials had expressed the view that it was only a matter of time before he was apprehended.
But that was more than a year ago.

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