Autopsy reveals businesswoman was strangled

Oct 27, 2020 News

Murder at La Grange…

By Shervin Belgrave

Murdered: Bibi Ramjit.

Kaieteur News – An autopsy has revealed that the elderly businesswoman who was found dead on Sunday at her La Grange, West Bank Demerara (WBD) home, was strangled.
Bibi Ramjit, 86, was found at around 17:00hrs lying on her bed with her feet and hands tied.
According to a police report, the woman lived in a two-storey wooden and concrete house which houses a grocery shop in the lower flat of the building and was last seen alive mere hours before her body was found.
A farmer had reportedly visited her grocery shop at around 15:00hrs that afternoon and had purchased some eddoes.
He told investigators that Ramjit did not have change for his $5000 so he collected the eddoes and promised to return with the cash later that afternoon.
Investigators believe that sometime after the farmer left, Ramjit’s killer or killers had entered her premises to commit robbery.
Two hours later, the farmer reportedly returned to Ramjit’s grocery shop to pay for the eddoes but she was nowhere to be seen. The man claimed that he called out her name as well but got no answer. Noting that both the shop and a door to her living quarters located on the upper flat was open, the farmer decided to enter.
He reportedly climbed the stairs and saw Ramjit’s body lying on her bed. Crime scene experts who arrived later observed that her home was ransacked and believed that she was slain during the course of the robbery.

The house where Ramjit’s body was found. (Photo Credit: Joseph Allen)

Speaking with Kaieteur News yesterday, one of Ramjit’s daughters recalled that she had the last telephone conversation with her mother at around 09:30hrs on the day, which she was brutally murdered.
She recalled that her mom had told her that she was burning some leaves in her backyard and that she was doing okay.
Ramjit’s daughter said that her mother had been living alone for nearly two years after her caregiver walked out on her back in January 2018.
All of her children and almost all of relatives, she said, reside overseas but because of Ramjit’s love for Guyana and her business, which she operated for 33 years, she chose to stay behind.
“She would visit us in the United States and Canada regularly but she never wanted to stay, she always wanted to return to her home,” said the daughter.
Her decision had prompted her children to hire a female caregiver to stay with her. Ramjit, Kaieteur News was told, had adopted the woman as one of her own children.
Nevertheless, as time passed, the relationship between Ramjit and the caregiver turned sour.
According family members, it was during Ramjit’s frequent trips to be with her children overseas that the caregiver began stealing from her and hosted wild parties at her (Ramjit’s) house.
After one of those trips, Ramjit had confronted the woman about her behaviour but she became annoyed and left.
Since then her children advised her to close up her shop and travel to the US to stay with them.
However, she was hesitant about doing that. “She always wanted to be independent and work for her own things; she just like being active,” the daughter related.
She continued, “Mommy would often say that her business allowed her to interact and build a relationship with people, something she loved doing.”
Worried for her safety, family members would travel every two months to visit her but then the COVID-19 pandemic struck which resulted in the airports being closed.
It was during this time as well that Ramjit had decided to close up shop since persons began robbing her, the daughter added. On that occasion, she was reportedly distracted, while in her shop, by a female customer whose accomplice went into Ramjit’s living quarters and stole cash.
Ramjit was scheduled to return to the US in June but was prohibited from doing so because of the imposed COVID-19 travel restrictions.

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