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Missionary murdered while husband prayed – Five months later Killer(s) still at large
=Detective=
By Shervin Belgrave
Kaieteur News – Almost five months have passed since a Reverend of the Wesleyan Church, located in Paramakatoi Village, Region Eight found his 78-year-old wife brutally murdered in their home.
The woman, Ramdia Balkaran, popularly known as ‘Sister Jean’ in the Region Eight village was discovered on the morning of December 29 last battered, bound, and gagged. An autopsy revealed that she died from suffocation and blunt force trauma to the head.
Murdered, Sister Jean (Ramdia Balkaran)
Sister Jean was beaten and whatever was used to gag her from screaming was shoved too deep down her throat that she suffocated as a result. Her killer(s) are still at large and at the moment their identity is not known but one thing is certain, they murdered a woman who has been a missionary in the Paramakatoi area for 50 years, while her husband, Basil Balkaran was praying not only for himself and family but for the entire village.
According to reports she was last seen alive around 19:30hrs on Wednesday, December 28, 2022 closing a shop she and her husband operated in the area.
While she retired to bed her husband went to another house located on the property to pray and meditate.
He spent the entire night there and at around 06:00 hrs the following day, he went over to where his wife was only to find her dead. No one knows what happened but police suspect that motive might be robbery.
Detectives had arrested two men for questioning but released them after they were unable to obtain any pertinent information to find the missionary’s killer.
Her death angered the villagers because she was a respected individual and devoted Christian, who dedicated most of her life towards the spiritual wellbeing of a community that is not even her home.
It is their view that ‘Sister Jean’ did not deserve to die the way she did.
Following her death villagers started using a hashtag, #JusticeforSisBalkaran and have been repeatedly calling on persons from Region Eight to assist the police with any information they may have about the perpetrators of such a gruesome killing.
One Person had posted, “If there was a time that Paramakatoi should come together, that time is now. Community Members need to come forward with information which can lead to the arrest and eventual prosecution of person(s) responsible for the death of Sis Jean Balkaran. She was the most gentle of souls and always greets me with a smile and when she has bananas. May her soul rest in eternal peace. #justiceforsisbalkaran”
Another person said, “I hope the perpetrators of this evil will be found and the whole Book of Law be thrown at them. This wanton killing is one time, too many, by very wicked and evil people. It seems they left something there at the Balkaran’s home and went for it. I can’t begin to imagine what this lady went through before drawing her last breath. A woman who won’t even hurt a fly was killed. She took time to serve wholeheartedly the Amerindian People in the interior for many years”.
Persons were beginning to lose hope that Balkaran’s killer (S) will be caught but a recent breakthrough in the three-year-old case of a missing police officer by detectives has renewed their confidence in the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to find the murderers.
One villager said, “Kudos to the police for solving the Quincy Lewis case but I hope that they divert that same amount of attention to find Sister Jean killers”.
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