BALLAD OF A SAD-EYED WAITRESS

Nov 13, 2016 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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By Michael Jordan
There always seemed to be a touch of mystery and sadness in her eyes, and looking at her standing behind the counter of the Chinese Restaurant I sometimes visited, I often wondered what her story was. I never knew that I would write Debra Blackman’s story one day, and that it would be such a tragic one, and that it would be intertwined with the stories of two other waitresses.
The first victim was Kulmattie Singh. Friends called her ‘Cathy’, and misfortune seemed to follow her. Her first husband, with whom she had a son, was killed in an electrical accident. She remarried, had three other children, and separated.
With four children to take care of, the 36-year-old mother took a job as a waitress at a Kitty nightspot. When Kulmattie’s mother expressed concern for her daughter’s safety, the waitress would reply: “Who would give me the money to take care of my children?”
On Friday, January 8, 2010, Kulmattie Singh left her home in North East Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara, to work the night-shift at the Safraz Sports Bar in David Street, Kitty. She arrived at around 15:00 hrs and was scheduled to work until morning.
At around ten o’clock, night club patron John Ramdhan was sitting with his wife, Andrea, and about five other friends, including some from England, when he saw a man enter the premises.
“Nobody move!” the man shouted.
Just someone pulling a prank, Ramdhan thought.
But then the visitor pulled out a handgun. Two other men, also brandishing handguns joined him. Shorty after, the gunfire started.
Ramdhan saw a Caucasian man, later identified as 36-year-old Australian Jason Montgomery, kneeling on the ground and crying out in pain. He had taken a bullet to the chest. The gunmen also shot patron Ronald Dhanraj, called ‘Lar’, under the arm.
The first gunman then went over to Ramdhan and relieved him of a gold chain and $60,000.
Ramdhan’s wife was also relieved of a diamond ring and cell phone. The terrified couple then fled to a nearby washroom. Others managed to flee to the back of the sports bar.
Going further into the nightclub, the bandits also relieved the bartender of the day’s sales.
Police would later say that waitress Kulmattie Singh was trying to lead some patrons to a room at the back of the bar when one of the gunmen shot her in the head. The gunmen reportedly fled in a gold-coloured car.
Kulmattie was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Although a closed circuit monitor at the sports bar recorded the brazen attack, police officials said that the poor quality of the images made it practically impossible for investigators to identify the three gunmen behind the rampage.
Later, police would discover that a 9mm bullet casing retrieved from the scene matched a spent shell that detectives had recovered from an execution-style killing in Alberttown on the night of January 12, 2010.
The victim was 29-year-old Nicholas Hoyte called ‘Ziah’. Hoyte, sitting in a car, was riddled with bullets by the occupants of a white Toyota Carina AT 192. His killers were never caught.
Kulmattie Singh’s family received $50,000 from the sports bar proprietor. They got nothing more.
A SIMPLE HIT; A COMPLEX STORY
It was a hit…plain and simple. That’s what the man I met said about waitress Jagwandai Ramnauth. It turned out the story behind her death wasn’t quite that simple.
You don’t often hear about a barmaid owning and selling property. But that was the case with this 46-year-old.
They called her ‘Selena’ and she worked as a waitress at the Country Club Restaurant and Bar in Chateau Margot, East Coast Demerara. It was said that the Bath Settlement, Berbice resident also served as cook and manned the nightspot whenever her employer was not around.
Most of the other staffers of the failing business had reportedly quit due to non-payment of salaries.
What happened on the night of Wednesday, April 23, 2014, is still unclear. It is alleged that at around 10.00 p.m., Jagwandai Ramnauth was involved in an argument with some patrons when one of them pulled out a firearm and shot her in the head. He then escaped.
According to reports, the owner was not at the bar when his waitress was shot. He reportedly told investigators that he received a call shortly before 11.00 p.m. from a worker, who said that the barmaid had a “problem” with some people.
According to police sources, the owner claimed that he immediately went to the bar and found Ramnauth lying in a pool of blood behind the counter with a bullet wound to her forehead.
Police immediately ruled out robbery and it didn’t take them long to come up with possible motives.
They learned that sometime in 2005, Ramnauth sold a property for $6M to a Cummings Lodge resident. It is alleged that the man gave Ramnauth $300,000, moved into the property, but then failed to complete the transaction. Ramnauth took the man to court.
But according to another report, after collecting the down-payment, Ramnauth sold the property to another man. The new owner allegedly began making attempts to evict the original buyer and his family.
Detectives were also told Ramnauth had loaned her employer $500,000, but that the man had not repaid the loan.
There are also reports that hours before her death, the barmaid and her boss had quarreled after she threatened to quit her job due to months of unpaid salary. This information led detectives to detain the manager and two of his brothers. They were all subsequently released.
“We were working on the theory that she sold a property to a man, and he only paid part of the sum. The theory was that he put a hit on her,” a police official told me. “We were unable to identify the shooter.”
THE SAD-EYED WAITRESS
I first saw Debra Blackman around 2002, when she was working at a Chinese Restaurant, located a short distance from Kaieteur News. Maybe it was the satin-brown skin, or the hint of sadness and allure in her eyes, that reminded me of the actresses who played those femme fatale roles in old black-and-white movies.
In reality, Debra Blackman was just a hard-working, struggling mother.
At around 8.00 p.m. on Saturday, August 22, 2014, one of my contacts called to say that a waitress had been shot dead in the Delicious Restaurant, located in D’Urban Street, between Haley and Hardina Streets.
The next day, there was my sad-eyed friend staring out at me from under the newspaper headline: ‘WAITRESS SHOT DEAD AT BAR’.
They say it was around 7.30 p.m., and 48-year-old Debra Blackman was standing behind the restaurant bar when two men on a motorcycle rode up to the D’Urban Street restaurant.
According to police, the pillion rider entered the restaurant paid for a meal, then shot Blackman in the neck before escaping.
Footage from a security camera shows a man of African ancestry in a black cap, with red peak, going up to the counter and apparently making a purchase. Two other men then come to the counter, and one of them gives Blackman a $5,000 note. The footage shows the apparently nervous men constantly glancing around.
According to investigators, all clues indicate that the gunman had entered the restaurant with the sole aim of killing Debra Blackman.
Police came up with a number of motives. One was that Mrs. Blackman was slain for something someone else had done.
Blackman’s children insist that they know of no reason for anyone wanting to kill their mother.
“My mother doesn’t own her own house, she doesn’t have jewels, she is not a rich woman, she doesn’t have life insurance, she doesn’t have anything for anyone to want to kill her for, just her life and children,” one distraught daughter told me.
This daughter says that security footage they saw shows the gunman tossing what appears to be a moneybag at their mother before shooting her. She says this suggests that the gunman had come to rob the restaurant and had ended up killing her mom. Another suggestion made to me was that one of the bandits was connected to a previous robbery at the restaurant.
With the investigation stalled, police released a photograph of the shooter, whom they identified as the man in the black and red cap. Kaieteur News has also placed part of the security camera footage on Facebook.
Surely, somebody out there knows him, and why he killed Debra Blackman.
If you have any information about this or any other unusual case, please contact Kaieteur News by letter or telephone at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown offices. Our numbers are 22-58465, 22-58473 and 22-58458. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address [email protected]

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