Unanswered screams on a rainy night

Jul 21, 2019 Murder and Mystery, News

By Michael Jordan

In my twenty-five odd years on the crime beat, there are only two cases that I can recall in which intruders, bent on robbery, entered a home, killed the wife, and left the husband virtually untouched.

Murdered in her bedroom: Nalinie Persaud

Strange that both of these murders happened in James Street, Albouystown, and that both remain unsolved, with so many unanswered questions, swirling around.
The first one happened during that period some call the ‘crime wave’, and others call ‘the troubles.’
The second killing happened on a rainy night, just two months ago.
Fifty-six-year-old Nalinie Persaud operated Nalo’s Variety Shop at Lot 161 James Street, Albouystown. She’d reportedly bought the property from another individual ten years ago. She lived there with her 59-year-old spouse, Mahendra Rampersaud, who had returned to Guyana after a year overseas.
Mahendra Rampersaud says that he and his reputed wife retired to bed at around midnight on Friday, May 2. At around 3:00 a.m., Rampersaud allegedly felt someone touch his leg. He awoke. Four masked men were in his bedroom. Two were pointing guns at him. He said that when he sat up, the men ‘lassoed’ him around the neck with a length of nylon rope.
His wife, who had also awoken, began to scream and the men immediately pounced on her and pressed her face-down on the bed. However, according to Rampersaud, Nalinie Persaud “was still keeping noise.”
While two of the robbers subdued his wife, the other two dragged him to the bottom flat where their shop is located.

Mahendra Persaud points to the area where the killers allegedly ripped away a section of the wall to gain entry

The shopkeeper said he repeatedly pleaded with the men to spare him: “Don’t kill me; tek whatever you want.”
After taking him downstairs, Rampersaud said that the bandits ordered him to switch off the lights. He said they began to gun-butt and kick him, while asking, “Where the money and the jewellery deh.”
Because his wife was the one who handled the finances, Rampersaud said he suggested to the bandits that, “Maybe the money deh in the wardrobe.”
The robbers, he said, then placed him on the floor of the shop, gagged him, and strapped his eyes and limbs with duct tape.
He said that he eventually heard the other two men come downstairs and tell their accomplices, “We get thing,” (money) before hearing them escape via the front door of the shop.
Rampersaud said he remained gagged and bound in the shop for almost three hours, before a customer arrived, entered through the front door that was left open and freed him.

Nalo’s Variety Shop

Rampersaud said that he then alerted his reputed wife’s son, who lives next door.
The son then went to the top flat and Rampersaud said he then heard the son cry out, “Ow, they kill me mother.”
He said that his spouse’s body was on the bed, and a length of rope was tied around her neck. A post mortem would later reveal she had suffered compound injuries to the neck and blunt trauma to the head.
He suggested that the killers had forced his spouse to hand over money and jewellery. According to Mr. Rampersaud, he had no idea how much money his wife might have had in the house.
When I visited later that day, Mr. Rampersaud showed me around the two-storey house.
He indicated that the bandits first gained access to his yard by ripping out zinc sheets from a backyard fence. They then prised out some loose boards from the southern wall in the bottom flat. They were able to gain access to the top flat, where the couple lived, via a door that was only bolted from the outside.
A team that was headed by ranks from the Force’s Major Crimes Unit set about trying to solve the case. A few things puzzled them. Bandits who enter a home almost invariably attack the male occupants, whom they perceive to be a bigger threat. So why had they murdered Mrs. Persaud, and left her husband alive?
One theory Mr. Persaud put forward was that the intruders harmed his reputed wife because she would not stop screaming. But why had none of the neighbours, including her stepson who lived nearby, heard those screams?
Mr. Rampersaud said heavy rainfall might have muffled the screams.
Investigators also seem to suspect that an individual who was familiar with the victim’s home may have carried out the act.
There are also indications that Mrs. Persaud might have had quite a bit of money stashed in her house. At the time of her murder, she was reportedly planning to renovate the premises and also to buy a vehicle which would operate as a taxi.
The detectives arrested three suspects, including a James Street resident, but eventually released them.
Two months later, they are still looking for the persons who snuffed out Nalinie Persaud’s life on a rainy night, and wondering why no one saw the killers enter or leave, and why no one heard a woman’s desperate screams.
If you have any information on this case or other unusual incident, please contact us at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown offices. You can also reach us on telephone numbers: 592-225-8458, 592-225-8465, 592-225-8482, or 592-225-8491. You need not disclose your identity. You can also contact Michael Jordan via his email address: [email protected]