FORTY-EIGHT-year-old businessman Ramdat Lokhnauth and his wife, 42-year-old Siromani Lokhnauth, were discovered shot dead early yesterday at their Garnett Street, Campbellville home above their business premises.

The discovery was made at around 04:00hrs by the man’s son, his brother, and a sister-in-law.

The man had reportedly shot himself in the head after shooting his wife of almost thirteen years in the head as well. She is believed to have been shot in the region of the ear.

Reports are that the businessman had called telling his son that he had just shot his wife (the boy’s stepmother), and that he was going to kill himself as well.

The young man reportedly told his father in reply:
“Daddy, today is my birthday; don’t give me this as a birthday gift; don’t kill yourself.” But his father told him instead that he would be leaving the keys to the building with the security guard downstairs.

Speaking with the media at the Kitty Police Station yesterday morning, the dead woman’s sister said she received a call from her nephew, who told her that his father and stepmother, whom he called ‘Aunty Nadia’, were fighting. She said the young man told her that his father and stepmother had a problem at home, and that he was heading over there. They all showed up at the home.

According to the grieving woman, when they arrived at the home, they called and got no answer. They asked the guard if he had heard any strange noise coming from the house, and he responded in the negative. He however told them that the boss had left a bunch of keys with him, on the instruction that he should hand them over to his son when the lad got there.

The woman said they collected the keys and opened the door to the three-storey building. She recalled that the place was pitch dark, so she put on the light and proceeded to the bedroom, where she discovered her sister and brother-in-law lying in pools of blood. The police were immediately called in. The woman said that when she felt her sister’s feet, they were already cold, as if she had been long dead.

Asked what may have led the God-fearing man to kill his wife and self, the woman said the businessman and her sister had, some time ago, been in the process of sorting out some marriage problems. She recalled that about three months ago, the man had approached his wife with a request for a divorce, and had told her she should get out of his house.
The wife had eventually booked a flight to the United States, where she had spent time with her two children, whom she had neglected in favour of raising her husband’s children.
But while the woman had been in the United States, the man had kept calling her, telling family members that he could not run the business on his own, and that he needed his wife next to him, since he could not live without her. The man had somehow managed to persuade the woman to come back home, which she did only Wednesday last.

Since returning on Wednesday morning, the couple had been out to lunch every day, up until Friday. They had also been expected to travel at some point to Essequibo at the invitation of their pastor, to receive marriage counselling.

The woman said that her sister had been in an abusive relationship, and no one had thought that her life would have ended the way it did when she returned home on Wednesday. She said that after returning home on Wednesday, her sister began doing “bank runnings” for the business, along with her husband, and several papers had been signed.

Another relative also informed this publication that sometime within the past week, the businessman had made a will, disbursing his assets among members of his family. The woman’s relatives believe that the man had decided to end the relationship with his wife because he had been seeing someone else.

There are also reports that after she had been asked for a divorce, the man’s wife had informed him that she would be seeking to get half of the man’s total assets.

A friend of the now dead man told the Guyana Chronicle that in 1981, a woman with whom the man had had a relationship and with whom he had had children had burnt herself to death. Following that dramatic experience, the man had begun a relationship with another woman, who subsequently left him, after which he had picked up with Nadia, who he had married. The two had no children together.
Written By Leroy Smith