Lucky escape from death row for Ramdeen

ANGELA RAMDEEN must consider herself a very lucky person. She committed two of the most brutal and senseless murders in this country. Now, the High Court has ordered her removal from Death Row and that she be paid compensation by the State for being kept in the condemned section for 20 months longer than necessary.

Imagine that! Compensation for a killer. Women have killed before. There were instances where women retaliated when abused and killed their spouses. The courts and the juries have shown sympathy to such women, and rightly so. There were premeditated killings by women, for example murders committed by Indravani Ramjattan and Natasha De Leon. Ramjattan was convicted with two other men for the murder of her common-law husband Alexander Jordan. She allowed them into her house in the dead of night when her husband was asleep. He was battered to death and his body removed and burned. Her death sentence was eventually reduced to manslaughter. Natasha De Leon was sentenced to death with Darrin Roger Thomas for the murder of a taxi driver at Mosquito Creek, South Trinidad, in 1995. While the State moved to execute Thomas, no such attempt was made to hang De Leon. But Ramdeen’s case is totally different. Here was a woman, beating and burying two helpless infant children in a manure grave while living with their father.

Ramdeen, now 41, had been living for sometime with the father of Sabrina, seven, and Toolsie Dass, eight, at Carlsen Field, Chaguanas. On the morning of October 25, 1993, Ramdeen collected the two children from their school in Freeport and took them home, part of the journey being in a taxi. She sent them to bathe during which time she beat them. One by one, she placed them in a shallow manure grave at the back of their home. She then covered the grave and went about her business. In the afternoon, the children’s father Brichnu Dass went to the school to pick up his children but found that they were not there, although their school bags and lunch kits were. Dass went home and asked Ramdeen if she had collected or seen the children. She denied having done so. The police were later notified, and on interview Ramdeen admitted she had been with the children and said they had been struck by a car and their bodies thrown into a field by the occupant of the car.

Ramdeen identified the field, but a search revealed nothing. Eventually, Ramdeen said she had buried the children’s bodies in the manure heap. The area was dug up and the nude bodies of the children were found. In a statement to the police, Ramdeen gave an account which indicated that she had killed both children by strangulation when bathing them. Post-mortem examinations however established that the death of Toolsie Dass had resulted from severe blows to the head and chest inflicted by a blunt object. Sabrina Dass had also suffered injuries to the chest as a result of being struck with a blunt instrument, but there were indications she had died from suffocation, still being alive when she had been buried. The weapon was never located. At the trial, Ramdeen relied upon the defence of diminished responsibility. Although arrested and taken into custody on October 26, 1993, Ramdeen was not examined as to her mental condition until admitted to St Ann’s Hospital on November 7, 1996 for a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. A report signed by psychiatrist Dr Gerald Hutchinson was forwarded to the High Court. Dr Hutchinson recognised the difficulties in assessing Ramdeen’s mental state three years after the killings.

He said at the time he saw the woman she was suffering from moderate depression, which was probably due to incarceration. Dr Hutchinson said Ramdeen was of sound mind and not suffering from any disease of the mind that could have been applied to justify her actions. Ramdeen did not give evidence, but called her two sisters as witnesses. They stated that Ramdeen had been subjected to extensive and repeated physical violence by her father usually occurring when he was drunk. Ramdeen was however found guilty and sentenced to death by Justice Lionel Jones in the Port-of-Spain First Criminal Court on January 14, 1997. She appealed but the Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal on October 15, 1997. She then appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Law Lords comprising Lords Hoffmann, Clyde, Saville, Hobhouse, and Justice Henry, dismissed Ramdeen’s appeal on December 1, 1999.

The Privy Council appeal focused mainly on Ramdeen’s mental condition. One psychiatrist believed that Ramdeen had some of the characteristics of women who have Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy — a syndrome which occurs in profoundly psychologically disturbed women who have been abused and have serious personality disorders. The psychiatrist said Ramdeen may or may not have been suffering from an abnormality of mind at the time of the killings. However, the Law Lords said they did not find cogent evidence of diminished responsibility. As Justice Henry stated, if there was to be a re-trial, there may not have been a different result. “When all these matters are taken into account, it becomes clear that there is an absence of any principled basis for revisiting the jury’s rejection of the defence of diminished responsibility,” Justice Henry added.