Mother of four stabbed to death

TWENTY-FOUR years of physical and verbal abuse ended in cold-blooded murder yesterday, when a 41-year-old mother of four was stabbed to death by a man as she slept in her parents’ home at Smith Street, Korea Village, Carapichaima.   
                  
After the brutal attack, Reena Dalchan’s killer embraced her body and confessed his ever-lasting love to her. Then, in an unsuccessful attempt at ending his life, the 46-year-old jumped from the top floor of Dalchan’s parents’  home, landing ten feet below, onto the concrete ground. The Chaguanas man was up to late yesterday warded in serious but stable condition, under police guard, at San Fernando General Hospital. He was said to be paralysed from the waist down and shouting at staff that he had no regrets over Dalchan’s death. Investigators have since seized an 11-inch fishing knife, which they believe is the murder weapon. Dalchan, a janitor who worked in Chaguanas, left her  home at Crissy Street, Enterprise, Chaguanas seven weeks ago. Three weeks ago, she took out a restraining order against her killer.
                                                                     
Relatives who gathered at the house of mourning yesterday expressed shock over the incident, even though they admitted that the man had threatened to kill Dalchan and himself, on several occasions, the most recent being last Friday, when he confronted Dalchan at her workplace. However, relatives said Dalchan was willing to give him a second chance, if he was prepared to change his violent ways and to stop drinking. Recalling the incident to Newsday yesterday, Dalchan’s sister Yvonne Hosein, 30, said around 5.45 am she was asleep on the same bed with Dalchan, when she (Hosein) heard a knocking on the bedroom door, which also leads to the gallery of the house. Hosein said her sister pinched her and told her to open the door because she thought it was their two brothers, who had gone to spend Father’s Day at the home of other relatives. “When I open the door, I saw him. I told him he had to get out now. He told me to get out and we start to struggle. He push me out the door and throw me on the ground. Then he pulled out a knife from his jersey,” Hosein said.

She added that the man jumped on top of her sister who was still lying on the bed and started stabbing her repeatedly. “It could have been ten or more times he stabbed her on the neck, hands and chest. She was crying, screaming and she bawl out ‘ma, pa (named called) killing meh’ and that was it,” Hosein said. The shaken woman said her sister’s screams of agony woke up their elderly parents — John, 65, and Polly Soodarsan, 60, who both rushed to the bedroom to try to save Reena. However, Hosein said, there was little the elderly couple could do to save their dying daughter since both of them are stroke victims and were easily pushed away by the killer, who continued stabbing Dalchan. Another relative, Reena’s sister-in-law, Lilly Soodarsan, 32, who was downstairs when she heard the screams, told Newsday, when she entered the room she saw the killer sitting on the blood-soaked bed and hugging the dead woman.

She also said the killer seemed to be remorseful for what he had done. She said the man was calling Dalchan’s name and speaking in a “sobbing manner,” but was not crying. Lilly said the killer told her, “she dead and I have to die too. Both of we are going together.” Lilly said the man then got up, placed a chair near the banister, climbed it, bent his head and jumped head first. She added that  Dalchan had lodged several reports against the man to the Chaguanas police, but she (Dalchan) always believed he could change his ways. Visiting the scene were head of Central Division — Snr Supt Phillip Carmona, ASP Rampersad, Insp Gopiechan, Sgt Sylvestor and investigating officer Sgt Duncan.   District Medical Officer Dr Mahabir viewed the woman’s body and ordered its removal to the Forensic Sciences Centre where up to late yesterday, efforts were being made to have an autopsy done.