Witness: I saw two human feet in bath tub

A WOMAN testified in the San Fernando High Court yesterday that when she went to clean a house in Syne Village she found “two human feet” in a bath tub.

State witness Denise Rousseau, said she ran to the living room and called out to Benedict Innis, who burst into tears and started screaming when he went to the bathroom and viewed the human remains, which belonged to Innis’ 70-year-old grandmother Ursula. Under a water tank outside the house was the decomposing body of Ursula’s common-law husband Selwyn Grant. Mookesh Chandardath, 35, and Zanna Andrews, 26, are on trial for the double-murder, before Justice Herbert Volney and a 12-member mixed jury in the First Criminal Assizes of the San Fernando High Court. Attorney Chateram Sinanan is representing Chandardath while Ian Gray, instructed by Faraaz Mohammed, is representing Andrews. Rousseau also of Syne Village, testified that on September 16, 1999 around 5 pm, Innis took her to his grandparents’ home at No 1 Allen Drive. On entering the back door, Rousseau said she saw the house ransacked and detected a foul stench. Rousseau said she started to clean the kitchen area, while Innis was switching on lights in the house. She added that after a few minutes, Innis went into the living room and called out to her, telling her to take the lights off in the bathroom. Rousseau said as she was about to switch the lights off, she saw “two human feet covered with clothes” in the bath tub, with the toes upwards and the soles facing her.

Rousseau said she and Innis made a report at the Siparia CID and a party of officers accompanied them back to the house. Another State witness Lawrence Callendar, who was a neighbour and friend of Grant, told the court he noticed Grant missing around the middle to the end of July, 1999. Callendar, who tended a garden opposite Grant’s house, said he later saw “an Indian fella” whom he pointed out in court as being Chandardath, driving Grant’s Commodore car. “I asked him (Chandardath), ‘I ain’t see the two old people for a few days. Where are they?’ He told me they were somewhere in La Romaine by their family,’” Callendar said. Also testifying yesterday was Chandardath’s mother-in-law Maureen Charles who said while her daughter Maria was married to Chandardath, she (Maria) returned home to Penal Rock Road, Penal, after experiencing problems with Chandardath’s mother. Charles said on August 8, 1999 — Chandardath’s birthday — he took Maria to live with him at an apartment at Allen Drive. Some nine days later, Charles testified, she went to visit Maria at the apartment. “When I walked in, I got a very stink smell and I asked them what was smelling. They said it was some dead rat or something about the place.” The case continues on Thursday.