SUICIDE PACT — THE SIGNS WERE IGNORED

Stephanie Boodram would have turned 12 today. Instead she will be buried  today. While the nation was shocked by the double suicide of the schoolgirl and her 24-year-old lover, Jairam Baldeo, reports suggest the tragedy could have been averted if someone had heeded the several warning signs. While the families of each victim have since pointed fingers at each other, reports are that Boodram and Baldeo had in fact been seeing each other for two years. Baldeo often visited the house being built by Boodram’s mother and worked there, where he would see the girl. Yesterday an autopsy confirmed Boodram had been sexually active.

Neighbours said after being separated from her father and mother, the child had much liberty and even at her tender age, used to regularly attend fetes. When she died she was found clothed in a skimpy red “navel breaker” blouse and low-cut “hipster” denim jeans. Perhaps confusing a lover with a father figure, neighbours said the girl used to push herself at Baldeo, even chase him. There were also warning signs on Baldeo’s side. About a year or two ago, he tried to commit suicide. After drinking poison, he had been warded for days at Port-of-Spain General Hospital. Police planned to charge him, but instead heeded his family’s pleas to help counsel and monitor him. In the lead up to the tragedy, Baldeo’s parents had often warned him the girl was a minor and he could get himself into a lot of trouble. But he had a “saga boy” mentality and a “don’t care” attitude.

New evidence suggests he might have been living in a fantasy world and was highly delusional. Just days before the tragedy, Baldeo told his mother, Dolly, he was going away to meet US President George W Bush and would not be coming back and they would not find him. As if finalising his personal affairs, he had washed all his clothes for the first time ever, dried and folded them, and gave them away to his brothers. One of his friends described him as having a “loose screw” and although he never foresaw Baldeo’s tragedy, in hindsight, was not fully surprised by the turn of events. Another of Baldoe’s close friends, Sanjay Kallian, was liming with him on Friday night before Sunday’s tragedy but did not pick up any hint of what he was about to do.

Kallian asked Baldeo whether he was planning to continue attending a three-day wedding he had attended with his brothers. Baldeo said “yes,” but only if he got a negative reply to a phone call he was about to make. It seemed he called Boodram, who he picked up the next day — Saturday — from a parlour in Barataria, where she had been staying with her mother and step-father. He hired a taxi from Sangre Grande to San Juan, picked up Boodram and then journeyed to Toco. Evidence found at the death scene, a forested area of Toco, suggested that Baldeo had performed his own “wedding” ceremony with Boodram. Near the bodies were found a wedding ring box, and a knife which is used symbolically in Hindu weddings. Moreso the man’s jacket was spread out on the ground as in a Hindu wedding. The ring, newly-bought, had been placed on the fourth finger of Boodram’s left hand. 

Looking back, neighbours said the families of the dead couple must have known of their relationship. Boodram’s mother has been back at Little Coora Road for nine months, and Baldeo had often been at the house, which he was helping build. Reports are that sometimes Baldeo and Stephanie were sometimes there alone together. So this was no new thing. It was an established love affair. But at both the death scene in Toco on Monday and yesterday at the POS Forensic Centre, Boodram’s relatives tried to attack the Baldeo family. The girls’ relatives accused Baldeo of murdering Stephanie. Both times police had to intervene. Ending speculation that Baldeo used force on Boodram, the autopsy showed there were no marks of violence. The autopsy by Dr Eastlyn Borris revealed Jairam died from ingestion of a toxic substance. How Stephanie died remains inconclusive, pending the results of an analysis of her stomach contents.