–suspects in Better Hope murder confess to crime

By Rabindra Rooplall
TWO men who were arrested on Friday in Plaisance, East Coast Demerara (ECD) have confessed to the murder of David Ramkissoon, 76, called “Short Man” of Better Hope, ECD when confronted with evidence by the police.Ramkissoon’s body was discovered in his living room with his throat slit around 19:30hrs on August 21. He was the only person at home at the time of the murder.
Police said a DNA test will also be done as investigators found blood under the suspect’s nail and traces of blood in his home.
Police had initially held the deceased’s son Annand Ramkissoon, his employer and another person at the Sparendaam Police Station in connection with the murder, but they were subsequently released.
Detectives who visited the scene on the day of the murder saw footprints in the mud at the back of the pensioner’s yard, leading to an alleyway. Along with the footprints, they spotted drops of blood that led straight to a shack located a short distance from the slain man’s home.
Neighbours said just after the pensioner’s son and his family left to go to a creek on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway, pensioner Ramkissoon went to a nearby shop.
He reportedly failed to lock his door, and it is suspected that the killer sneaked inside.
Police who examined the scene reportedly found several envelopes, in which Ramkissoon had received his pension money, in a refrigerator.
The pensioner shared the home with his son, daughter-in-law and the couple’s two children. The daughter-in-law had said the family left home around 11:00 hrs on the aforementioned date to go to the creek.
“We left late and he (the father-in-law) was telling us is best we stay home and eat lunch then go to the creek, because the traffic to go to the creek gon be bad. He was sitting in the hammock when we left home,” she said.
The woman added that when they returned home, they noticed that the house was in complete darkness.
“My husband went in the yard and opened the door and went inside to put on the light and he go in his father room and called for him, but he see the room ransacked and his father wasn’t there, so we went in the other rooms and they were ransacked,” the woman said.
She said that it was when her husband was heading back downstairs that he noticed his father’s body and started to scream.
The daughter-in-law said she and several neighbours rushed into the house and saw Ramkissoon on the floor. She had related that she had no idea as to why the police would take her husband into custody, since he is innocent and would in no way harm his father.
Asked if she has any idea as to who may want her father-in-law dead, the woman responded in the negative, but claimed that there are a number of unemployed youths in the area who hang out in the streets.