Sister escapes from Den Amstel murderer

SHELLON Payne and her children who escaped unhurt during the attack. (Cullen Bess-Nelson photo)
SHELLON Payne, the 20-year-old woman whose sister, Claudine Rampersaud called ‘Donetta’, was hacked to death Thursday night, yesterday recalled her escape from the murderer.

The surviving sibling is nursing a gaping wound to her face and her reputed husband, Ryan Lewis, was yesterday still in critical condition at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), having been stabbed in the back twice and chopped on the head and fingers.

The 30-year-old Rampersaud was allegedly killed by her estranged paramour who was at large up to press time.

The survivor Payne, of Lot 35 Public Road, Den Amstel, West Coast Demerara, told the Guyana Chronicle she, Lewis and their children were on the way home after visiting her parents.

About 21:30h, a friend reported that the killer was dragging the victim into the yard where they used to live together up to several months ago.

She said they hurried to the place, suspecting that her sister was being beaten again and, when they arrived at the house, she heard her sister screaming for help and murder.

Payne said she called out to her sister while begging the assailant to open but, as the screams intensified, Lewis kicked down the door and they were confronted by the angry attacker who chopped her, too, wounding her in the face and attacking her spouse.

She said she had to drop her two-year-old son who was in her arms and Lewis did likewise with the boy’s three-year-old sister, causing both children to roll down the stairs.


Fortunately, they were not injured.

Their mother said, if they were not dropped, they would have suffered injuries, as well.

Payne said she fled leaving Lewis and the children and, when she returned, he was lying on the road with blood oozing from his wounds.

She and Lewis were then rushed to the hospital.

Rampersaud was murdered on her return home where the killer waited and forced her into the now abandoned house in which they previously lived.

Payne said, during her lifetime, Rampersaud endured a rocky common law relationship for more than nine years with the very jealous, possessive and abusive man.

He always accused her of having other men but my sister worked very hard to look after their four children and was not the type to have affairs,” Payne vouched.

The couple had resided in the bottom flat of her parents’ house at Lot 24 Back Street, Den Amstel.

Rampersaud died after suffering many wounds, including two gaping ones, one of which severed her head from her body.

The suspected murder weapons, two carpenter’s hatchets, have not been found and the fugitive is believed to have taken them with him into hiding.

Relatives said, before the killing, the spurned man had collected pieces of clothing and photographs, cleared the surrounding drains and erected a shed prior to sharpening the blades and placing them in the abandoned house and then waited for his victim.

Rampersaud was a Special Constable attached to Guyana Power & Light (GPL), at Vreed-en-Hoop, also on the West Coast Demerara, for the past three years. (MICHEL OUTRIDGE)

Saturday, June 16, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


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