DEORAM Sookchand, the reputed husband of murdered 56-year-old cash-crop farmer Pamela Kendall, who was shot dead last Thursday at her home has been arrested.

Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum confirmed last evening that the man was taken into custody following several discoveries the police made as they tried to piece together the puzzle surrounding the woman’s murder. The first discovery concerned a telephone call that was placed to the home of the deceased while the man was at the hospital with the woman, moments after she was pronounced dead.
One relative had reported that a call was received at the house, with the caller stating, “If anything happen, y’all don’t call my name.”

The woman’s reputed husband never reported to the police or told family members that he had called the home, but as investigators questioned relatives, including the person who had taken that specific call, the relative told police that the voice on the other end of the line was positively identified as Deoram Sookchand’s.

Additionally, the police investigation has been able to ascertain that Sookchand had been deported from the United States several years ago after he was charged and jailed for drug and violent crimes. He never told the police about his past, although he still has a very strong American accent.

When the Guyana Chronicle visited the home of the deceased on Saturday, the man called on the police to bring his wife’s killer to justice, as he said his whole life was now “messed up.”

The two had been living together for the past nine years, and Sookchand has described his wife as the nicest person he had ever met. He said they had no problem between themselves or with anyone.

Asked if he believed that his wife’s killing was related to simple larceny, the man at one time had said yes, then at another time he said he was not sure.
It was during that interview with the man that this newspaper found several inconsistences in what he reported had happened on the night his wife was killed.

At one time the man had said he had seen more than one person in the house, and then he changed his story to say he had heard several voices, which suggested that there was more than one person.

He also admitted that when his wife was killed the place was pitch dark, as the community was experiencing a blackout, and he said he had continued to hide in the bathroom with the water running.

But the man again contradicted himself when he said that he saw the persons who invaded his home jumping the back fence and making good their escape, even as he had earlier stated that he remained in the bathroom until the men were gone.
As the inconsistences during his interview continued, the man said that after his wife was shot he came out of the bathroom and saw a pool of blood, but this contradicts his statement that the place was pitch dark.

“Well, on Thursday night, around 06:00-06:30, we locked up and we getting ready to go inside the kitchen, this door there; and me and my wife went in and I told her lock the door, I am going to take a shower. Soon as she turned around [to lock the door] and I was in the shower, this person ran in. And when she turned around, the guy was right there. She screamed and boom! I heard the shot. I am in the shower now, I freeze; black out, dark as pitch, you can’t see nothing. We don’t know who it is, and next thing they peep in the shower. I was not there because they could not see me, I was [there] against the wall, and they probably thought I run upstairs. The shower was running,” The man told this newspaper on Saturday afternoon at his home.

He further stated: “They went upstairs, they run through the house. I don’t know if they looking for me, but they did not try to steal anything. They did not tumble anything or what. He run down back, run out the door, and they scaled and jumped the fence and run away. I came out the shower screaming, looking for my wife, see bare blood on the floor and I could not find her. This time, never knowing she get up and run out and run across the street to her brother’s house, and she fell down in the yard.”

Meanwhile, despite the man admitting that the water in the shower was running, he claimed that he was able to hear whispers coming from outside that gave him the impression there was more than one person. “It is more than one, that I know because I saw one, but there was more, because the reason why I heard the whispering; so I know that there was more outside, but I could not see it because I was locked up in the bathroom and it was dark, you know, blackout.”

Despite the man claiming that he went straight to the bathroom after ordering his wife to lock up the house, he managed to still tell this newspaper that he saw his wife was shot after she turned around and saw a gun, something he could not have possibly seen had he indeed been in the bathroom as he earlier claimed.

“Well that [is] what I can tell you, because everybody house that they go to is a robbery, and I guess being by she turned around and saw this person with the gun, she screamed and [that] is why they probably shot her, and maybe they did not mean to shoot her and kill her, but it happened that way,” the man had once said.
By Leroy Smith