By Leroy Smith

…stepfather arrested

DETECTIVES in ‘C’ Division on Wednesday detained 40-year-old Balram Basdeosingh after his stepson, 10 year-old Johnathan Rampersaud was found dead in the family’s two bedroom house at Success, East Coast Demerara.

According to reports the La Bonne Intention (LBI) Primary School student was found hanging by his neck from a sheet in the house. At the time, the stepfather who some persons accused of constantly abusing the child, was alone with him and was under the influence of alcohol when the discovery of the body was made.

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle Bibi Ameena Hamid, the child’s mother said that she was at work when she received a call about the death of her son. She raced home to find him hinging in the room where he slept. The woman said prior to leaving for work, the young man had requested that she took him with her but she could not accommodate him. At times he would accompany his mother to her work. Bibi said that outside of that, her son was still in high spirits when she was leaving and was even playing football in the yard even after she left for work.

According to the distraught mother, when she arrived she enquired from neighbours if there was any misunderstanding between the child and his stepfather but they responded in the negative. She told this publication that her son and his stepfather shared a happy relationship. She was then asked to explain the need to ask the neighbours if there was any misunderstanding between the two while she was away but she could not provide an answer.

Meanwhile over at the home of the biological father of the young man, he believes that there was some level of foul play involved in the death of his son. Karran Rampersaud said that it was only on Wednesday he received all the horror stories about what his child had been going through and the alleged abuse at the hands of a relative.

Rampersaud said that most of what he heard prior to the death of his son, came from persons who lived in the area. The man said that when he showed up at the home where his son was found dead, he saw no signs of struggle for survival by a child who was hanging himself. He said that posture in which the child was found suggested that he might have been strangled then placed in the position. The father of the child has already indicated his willingness to have the police cause an examination of the child’s remains to see if he was ever molested.