WHO IS THE HARLEM KILLER?

Nov 27, 2016 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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By Michael Jordan
Wow! That was quick work!
Just two months after I highlighted the strange demise of Sadeek Juman in a hotel pool, the

boys from the Major Crimes Unit have all but solved this cold case.
Here’s one that I dearly want this unit to reopen.
Someone dropped off a note to me at Kaieteur News in late January 2010.
It said: “The suspect’s name is Durjhan…this is no joke. Help her.”
I knew the ‘her’ that I was being asked to help. But that individual was long past help, because someone had murdered her. And now someone was appealing to me to help bring her killer to justice.
A corpse was the last thing that the residents of the quiet rice-farming community of Harlem, West Coast Demerara, expected to see on the long dirt road known as Back Street on Sunday, January 10, 2010.
But there it was; the body of a fair-complexioned young woman of East Indian ancestry. Someone had attacked her brutally, leaving some 16 stab wounds on her body.
The injuries included two stab wounds to the throat and four to the abdomen.
The victim was clad in a pair of blue three-quarter pants, white sleeveless top, blue and white brassiere and a pair of brown slippers. The killer had scratched her during his brutal attack.
The villagers who looked at her realised that the victim was not from their community.
The suspicion was that someone had transported the victim by car to the area, murdered her and dumped the body there. Police ranks eventually arrived on the scene. They took the victim’s fingerprints and photographed her before mortuary attendants took the corpse to the West Demerara Regional Hospital morgue.
Needing to have the victim identified, a police official reportedly ordered a senior rank to release pictures of the slain woman to the media, in the hope that someone would recognise her. However, the senior rank failed to follow through with the request and the victim remained unidentified for two days. This lapse may have allowed a killer to cover his tracks or even go into hiding.
Despite this, it seemed as if police already had a suspect. Shortly after the discovery, a young taxi driver went to a police station on the West Bank of Demerara with a rather bizarre story.
According to police sources, his story was that he had stopped to urinate on a roadway in Harlem on the night of Saturday January 9, 2010, when the occupants of another car attacked him and made off with his vehicle.
The man’s taxi, which was smeared with mud, was found on the West Bank of Demerara. When the man made the report, the unidentified body had already been found. Investigators suspected that the taxi driver had some knowledge of the incident and took him into custody. They also impounded his car.
Meanwhile, I was curious about the victim’s identity, so, I visited the West Demerara Hospital mortuary, where I took photographs of the slain woman with the intention of publishing one of the less gruesome shots. We had used this method successfully before to assist the police in identifying murder victims.
I developed one of the photographs, and showed it to some of the taxi drivers who ply the West Coast and West Bank Demerara routes. I also showed the picture to the owners and patrons of some of the popular nightspots. No one recognised her.
However, the following day, several persons saw the Kaieteur News. They immediately recognised the victim.
One of those readers was a man from Pomona, Essequibo Coast. He realised that the victim was his daughter, 22-year-old Luciana Bhagwandin, a first-year trainee teacher at the Cyril Potter College of Education.
Luciana had married in her teens and had resided with her husband at Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara. However, around August 2009, the couple had some domestic troubles and Luciana moved out and went to stay with an aunt at Industry, East Coast Demerara.
Luciana’s close associates claim that it was at around this time that she caught the attention of a young man, who her friends portrayed as an obsessive and violent character, and also as someone with a shady past.
According to some reports, the man, a dark-complexioned individual of Indian ancestry, claimed that his first name was ‘Jerry’ and that he resided at Eccles, East Bank Demerara.
He claimed to be employed at an embassy. He also claimed to be a senior security official with the state. Luciana’s associates also said that the man would sometimes pick up the trainee teacher in a dark-blue car with heavily-tinted windows. The driver of the car had reportedly lived in Bel Air, but had moved to Ogle, East Coast Demerara.
According to her colleagues, the man had repeatedly urged Luciana to leave her husband. It is said that he would sometimes brazenly turn up outside Luciana’s residence and demand that she accompany him. The trainee teacher had reportedly told friends that ‘Jerry’ had often threatened to kill her and her spouse. He had once reportedly placed a gun to her head.
Luciana’s colleagues said that they warned her to leave ‘Jerry’. They were certain that he would kill her one day.
The aunt that Luciana was staying at told me that she left home at around 17:00 hrs on Friday, January 8, 2010, after saying that she was going to a supermarket.
She failed to return that night and the following day the aunt went to the Sophia Police Outpost to report her missing. The woman said that a rank informed her that she had to wait 48 hours before filing a missing person report. It appears that police never sent out an all-station bulletin when the body was discovered, to ascertain if anyone fitting the victim’s description had been reported missing.
But according to some of Luciana’s friends, she had indicated to ‘Jerry’ that she had wanted him to return some of her belongings. On the Friday that she disappeared, she was reportedly in the vicinity of Ogle, when the occupants of a dark-coloured vehicle abducted her.
Luciana’s colleagues recalled that she attended classes on Friday, January 8, 2010. She was scheduled to take an exam on Monday, January 11, 2010, but failed to turn up. The friends tried unsuccessfully to reach her on her mobile phone.
After hearing of the alleged abduction, police appeared to be convinced that the taxi driver that they had initially arrested knew nothing of the murder and released him.
The case went cold.
But about a week after appealing for information about Luciana’s killer, I received the envelope with the anonymous message. I then spoke to Luciana’s parents, who were also trying to gather information about her mystery boyfriend.
They said that Luciana would often tell them that she was going to a popular hotel on the East Bank of Demerara. They said that the boyfriend, who identified himself as ‘Jagroop’ had contacted them by telephone at around 19:00 hrs on January 2, 2010. That call had lasted for over 15 minutes.
It is also alleged that ‘Jagroop’ had brazenly informed Luciana’s husband about his affair with Luciana, and that an individual had given the husband a phone which contained proof of the affair.
The parents also said that they were told that their daughter had visited two locations at La Jalousie, West Coast Demerara, shortly before her death.
I passed this information over to the police. They checked it out, but to date, they have found no trace of their suspect.
But if Luciana Bhagwandin can somehow hear me, I want her to know that three years after…”I’m still trying to find your killer”.
And I’m appealing to those who knew you to help me.

If you have any information about this 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: mjdragon@ hotmail.com.

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