Three murdered women, three missing men

May 29, 2016 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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By Michael Jordan
I still can’t get over the fact that they’ve found Babita Sarjou’s remains…solved a case that languished for

close to six years. The satisfaction so many of us feel is partly over the belief that, with some effort from the police and the public, there can be similar closure in the many other cases like this.
So, let’s look back this week at three murders, in which the alleged killers are known, but their whereabouts are not. Can you help to track them down?

THE OLD FRUIT-SELLER
The man who came to kill 74-year-old Khirul Najidam seemed to know her routine well. He sneaked into her Lot 1215 Gaulding Place, South Ruimveldt home after midday, when the schoolchildren who came to her little shop were back in class, and when the area was practically deserted.
Najidam, known as ‘Babloo Saddick’ and ‘Auntie’ to residents, was a widow, had no children and lived alone. She made a living by selling sweets and a variety of fruits from the trees in her yard, and according to one neighbour, she got along well with everyone. The only problem she occasionally had was with youths who would steal a fruit or two from her trees.
When she wasn’t selling in the little bottom-house storeroom, neighbours would see her resting in a hammock.
At around 16:00 hrs on March 4, 2011, a group of girls who attended the South Ruimveldt Secondary School entered Najidam’s yard to make a purchase. However, they saw no sign of the elderly sweet-seller. After calling and getting no response, two of the girls then went to the storeroom that Najidam had converted into a shop and peeped inside.
They saw Ms. Najidam lying motionless on the storeroom floor. Someone had gagged her and used strips of her clothing and a hammock rope to bind her hands and feet. And that someone had also strangled her.
Detectives who arrived at the scene found the upstairs flat ransacked.

One neighbour recalled seeing Najidam earlier in the day, at around noon. Another neighbour claimed to have seen three boys running from the yard some time before 15:00hrs that day. However, the neighbour assumed that the boys had been raiding ‘Auntie’s’ trees once again.
Detectives who visited the scene dusted the premises for prints and checked for other clues, but made no arrests. On the surface, Najidam seemed to be the victim of a vicious burglar. But some neighbours had their suspicions.
According to one report, prior to his death, Khirul Najidam’s husband, known as ‘Uncle Saddick’, had left a property to her in his will. It was alleged that some individuals had resorted to forgery to get their hands on that property. This had led some neighbours to speculate that the dispute and ‘Auntie’s’ murder were connected. Najidam’s house remained unoccupied for several years, but has since been sold.
Three years passed without police having a clue about the identity of Najidam’s killer. Then, two years ago, fingerprint experts discovered that a print that they had lifted from Khirul Najidam’s home, in March 2011, was a match to fingerprints they had taken from an individual with an alleged criminal background.
Police say they are trying to locate Roger Brandt, who is wanted for questioning in relation to the murder of Najidam Saddick.
Brandt is of African ancestry, brown in complexion, and his last known address is 169 Stevedore Housing Scheme, Georgetown. Anyone with information that may lead to Roger Brandt’s arrest is asked to contact the police on telephone numbers 225-6411, 226-7065, 225-8196, 227-1149, 911 or the nearest police station. All information will be treated with strict confidence.

‘FRENCHIE’ THE JEALOUS SEAMAN

Savitri Arjune didn’t know death was literally waiting around the corner when she stepped out of her home at 382 Herstelling, East Bank Demerara at around six-fifteen that morning of January 27, 2008. She headed east along Rum Shop Street, with the intention of catching a minibus that would take her to her workplace in Georgetown.
The 34-year-old mother of two didn’t notice the green-and-white bus that was parked on the East Bank Demerara Public Road.
Just as Savitri neared the end of Rum Shop Street, a slim, fair-complexioned, middle-aged man emerged from behind the bus. A knife gleamed in one of his hands.
Before the terrified woman could flee, the man grabbed her and plunged his knife repeatedly into her body. One of the wounds pierced her heart.
Mortally wounded, Savitri Arjune collapsed on the dusty roadway. Her killer then calmly boarded the parked minibus and drove to Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara, where he abandoned the vehicle.
The killer had made no attempts to conceal his identity. He was 54-year-old Charles Chapman, called ‘Frenchie’. He was a former soldier and former seaman who now drove a minibus. He was also the murdered woman’s reputed husband.
Their eight-year-relationship had been a turbulent one. Arjune’s relatives claimed that ‘Frenchie’ was obsessive, and physically abusive, and repeatedly threatened to kill her. In fact, he had nearly carried out his threat just a week before when he slashed her with a knife. All reports indicated that Chapman regularly accused his spouse of being unfaithful and of squandering his money.

Chapman had also allegedly threatened to kill Savitri’s close family members and torch their home.
Chapman was charged at least once for assaulting Arjune, while Arjune was charged for damage to property after she smashed the windscreen of a minibus that Chapman had owned. But the warring couple would always settle the matters out of court.
However, matters reportedly came to a head when Savitri announced that she was severing the relationship.
Sarjou’s relatives gave me a number for the suspect’s mobile phone. I dialed it. A man answered.
“Frenchie?” I asked.
“Yes,” the man said.
“What happened to you and the woman?”
“Ah kill she,” he replied.
The man who identified himself as ‘Frenchie’ said that he befriended Arjune in 2000. At the time, he was a seaman and was making a lot of money. He was residing in Berbice with his wife and family.
But ‘Frenchie’ left his wife and began to live with Arjune at Herstelling.
According to the alleged killer, he splurged large sums of cash on his lover, but claimed that he eventually discovered that she was unfaithful to him. He also claimed she was physically and verbally abusive.
‘Frenchie’ claimed that they broke up in 2004 and he decided to return to his wife’s home.
“Meh wife accept me back and I carry me things to Berbice.”
But then ‘Frenchie’ allegedly rekindled his relationship with Arjune after she contacted him.
“Frenchie’ told his wife that he had landed a job on a ship. Instead, he rented a house in Herstelling “and put her (Arjune) in it”.
But he told me that her infidelity continued and he also ran into financial trouble, to the extent that he was unable to pay his rent and his phone was disconnected. He said that three weeks before the murder, Arjune walked out on him and returned to her mother’s place.
‘Frenchie’ confessed that he had harboured thoughts of killing Arjune and her family. He said he finally “tripped out” when he looked over from his home to the house where Savitri was staying and observed that she was laughing at him.
“The family laugh at me and I just trip, and I decide to do it,” he claimed.
On that morning of January 27, 2008, ‘Frenchie,’ accompanied by the owner of the bus he drove, parked the vehicle on the Herstelling road, since he knew that Arjune would pass at that time on her way to work. He was armed with his ‘blade.’
According to ‘Frenchie’, he indicated to the bus owner that he intended to make Arjune “an example.”
The fugitive alleged that he eventually spotted the woman approaching and emerged from the vehicle with the intention of merely holding her. But he said that everything changed when his ex-lover began to scream. He stabbed her.
“I try to hold she and she start screaming. “When I pull the ‘blade’ he (the owner and conductor) start run. When I give she de jook (stab) I tell he (the conductor) reverse and I gun put she in and carry to the hospital.”
Instead, ‘Frenchie’ himself jumped in the vehicle and drove away.
Afterwards, ‘Frenchie’ said that he informed his wife and other relatives that he had killed Arjune. They reportedly told him “is you life and you done f— it up.”
I asked him if he would turn himself in. He said no.
“I will not to go to jail and punish. I ain’t going to jail to sit down three, four years (for my case start). I too old fuh that.”
Word is that ‘Frenchie’ has fled to Suriname. It’s unclear whether the local cops have tried to track him down.

NIGHT OF THE BUTCHER
Roshanie Sooklall and her four siblings grew up dirt-poor in a back street in Herstelling, East Bank of Demerara. By the time she was ten, both her parents had died and at the age of 14, Roshanie and her four siblings moved to a tiny shack in a squatting community at Diamond, East Bank Demerara.
At around the age of 17, Roshanie started a relationship with a young man from an area at Soesdyke known as Sand Road. By the time she was 18, she had borne the young man a son, and had moved to Soesdyke to live with the man’s family.
The couple would eventually have two more children.
Roshanie’s spouse worked on and off as a canecutter at the Diamond sugar estate. He was also reportedly quick with his fists when he had too much to drink.
Time and again, Roshanie ran away from her abusive spouse, leaving her children behind to live with her brother in the Diamond squatting area.
But her brother, Hardyal Damroo, would always urge her to return to her spouse and children.
For Roshanie, the final straw came when her reputed husband chopped her on the arm.
Roshanie packed her belongings and moved back to her brother’s Diamond Squatting Area home.
This time, despite repeated pleas by her reputed husband, she refused to return.
On Saturday, January 25, 2002, Roshanie paid a visit to a female friend, Marcie Williams, who lived about 200 yards away in the same squatters’ community.
The two women spent the entire night at Williams’ home.
However, at around midnight, Roshanie told her friend that she was leaving, despite suggestions by the friend that she remain until daybreak.
Eventually, Marcie Williams decided to accompany Roshanie on her short journey home.
Williams was walking in front of Roshanie down a dirt track leading to their destination when she heard Roshanie scream.
On looking around, Williams saw Roshanie struggling with her reputed husband, who, from reports, was armed with a knife. As she watched in horror, the man threw Roshanie to the ground. Squatting on the helpless woman, Roshanie’s assailant then slashed her throat from ear to ear.
The man then turned his attention on Marcie Williams, who was still standing nearby. He told Marcie that she was next, since she had witnessed the act.
Screaming, Marcie Williams ran in the direction of her home, with the killer in pursuit.
A swipe from the killer’s knife sliced her right thumb open. Luckily, her screams had alerted a female resident, and Williams managed to scamper into the woman’s residence in the nick of time.
The killer then fled from the community.
Roshanie’s brother was resting at home when he heard Marcie Williams scream out his name. He rushed to the scene of the commotion and saw his sister’s mutilated body lying on the ground. He recalled that her neck was almost severed.
It is alleged that after killing Roshanie Sooklall, the suspect fled to Soesdyke.
He reportedly then collected the couple’s three children.
According to Roshanie’s brother, Hardyal Damroo, neither his sister’s killer nor her children have been seen since.
The suspect, Multie Fernandes, of Grant Sand Road, Soesdyke, is believed to be around 41 now. Fernandes, at the time, was said to be slim in build and fair in complexion. He reportedly had a gold tooth at the time of his disappearance.

If you have any information on the whereabouts of these men, please contact the police.
You can also write to us at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown. We can be reached on telephone numbers: 22-58458, 22-58465 and 22-58491. You need not disclose your name.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address [email protected].

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