Mayaro mother, son in one coffin

Police revealed yesterday that Ramlochan, 25, was stabbed 17 times, and her throat was slashed with a 12-inch hunter’s knife.

The killer then turned on Ramlochan’s two-year-old child, Ishmael Ragbir, stabbing him in the buttocks and legs.

He dumped Ramlochan in a cesspit next to her one-bedroom house at Solomon Street, before throwing the bleeding boy into a nearby river.

Family members yesterday spoke of a fate that has haunted them — the gruesome deaths of a number of their loved ones.

Newsday visited Ramlochan’s aunt, Radica Sookoo, of Tin Pan Alley, Barrackpore, who recalled that the murdered woman’s grandfather was violently killed in 1991. Grandfather Radhay Sookoo, she said, was murdered in Mayaro.

Aunt Sookoo told Newsday that Radhay’s body was found with stab wounds at Kernahan Village.

As fate would have it, the woman said, young Ishmael’s body was found on Saturday floating on the Ortoire River near the Mafeking Cremation site where his great grandfather was cremated.

Yet another tragedy struck when, aunt Sookoo recalled, Tarmatie Toolsie and Pixie Lakhan were murdered in April.

The two women are cousins of Ria Ramlochan. The bodies of Toolsie and Lakhan were found in shallow graves in Siparia.

"This family," a grief-stricken Sookoo said, "see too much blood."

Today, Ramlochan and her son will be placed in one casket for their funeral service.

Both mother and son slept in a single bed in their one-bedroom hut. The funeral service will be held at Lady Hailes Avenue, San Fernando.

Ramlochan’s 75-year-old grandmother, Dolly Elvira Sookoo, and aunt Sheila Seetaram, yesterday wondered why the mother and son had to suffer such brutal deaths. "She always had a happy smiling face," Seetaram said. "She didn’t deserve something like this."

Detectives are expected to consult with the Director of Public Prosecutions today to determine if charges are to be laid against a 31-year-old ex-convict.