Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

De­spite fre­quent dis­putes, of­ten fu­elled by al­co­hol, neigh­bours and rel­a­tives of Michael and Suni­ta Ram nev­er ex­pect­ed a dead­ly out­come.

Af­ter re­turn­ing from lim­ing at a bar on Sun­day evening, 65-year-old TSTT re­tiree Michael Ram fa­tal­ly shot his wife and then turned the shot­gun on him­self.

The cou­ple’s bod­ies were found in the liv­ing room of their Pi­paro Junc­tion Road, Hard­bar­gain, Williamsville home. This was the first mur­der-sui­cide in­ci­dent in the coun­try this year.

Po­lice were told the cou­ple re­turned home at 8 pm af­ter lim­ing at a bar, where they had both con­sumed al­co­hol. Ram re­port­ed­ly ac­cused his wife of be­ing un­faith­ful and they be­gan ar­gu­ing in the liv­ing room, in the pres­ence of their two adult chil­dren.

At 8.20 pm, Ram stormed off in­to the bed­room, re­turned with a shot­gun and shot her in the face.

Fear­ing for their lives, the chil­dren ran out of the house and hid in the yard. Min­utes lat­er they heard an­oth­er gun­shot and ran to a neigh­bour’s house for help. They then con­tact­ed the po­lice.

Of­fi­cers from the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force ar­rived at the house at 8.55 pm. The cou­ple’s bod­ies were in the liv­ing room. Suni­ta was in her night­gown and bleed­ing from a wound to her face while Ram was bare­back and bleed­ing from a wound to the right side of his head. A Stevens 16-gauge shot­gun was found four feet away from his body.

Po­lice con­firmed that he was a li­censed firearm hold­er. When Guardian Me­dia went to the home yes­ter­day morn­ing, the gate and front door of the house were closed. Neigh­bours re­vealed that Ram’s rel­a­tives lived near­by, but their doors were al­so closed and no one came out­side.

One of Suni­ta’s rel­a­tives, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said she did not know whether Ram was phys­i­cal­ly vi­o­lent to­wards her, but said he was not a nice per­son. She said Suni­ta met him when she was a teenag­er and they had been mar­ried for over 30 years.

She said, “He used to drink a lot. He was an al­co­holic. He wasn’t re­al­ly a nice per­son. She, on the oth­er hand, was nice, help­ful ...”

The rel­a­tive said Suni­ta’s fa­ther had dis­ap­proved of them lim­ing in bars and drink­ing al­co­hol. He died from can­cer six months ago.

“He used to tell her about the drink­ing and try to change your life.”

She ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that she nev­er thought Suni­ta was in dan­ger. The rel­a­tive ad­vised peo­ple to leave abu­sive or tur­bu­lent re­la­tion­ships.

“Please leave. If you are around peo­ple who drink­ing that much and thing, just leave. I’m sure he would have been threat­en­ing her be­fore be­cause you used to see it in her. You could see that she wasn’t hap­py but I guess old­er peo­ple, they just don’t leave. They think about what peo­ple will say but just don’t do that.”

On so­cial me­dia, an­oth­er rel­a­tive wrote, “Aun­ty Suni­ta Ram, the news of your life be­ing snatched from you tru­ly broke us. We had so many plans, thank you for the mem­o­ries for it’s all we have now.

“May all the good deeds you put out in­to this world car­ry you through to your next life, we miss you and we love you dear­ly.”

Mean­while, a neigh­bour said she did not know if the Rams had do­mes­tic is­sues, but said they were friend­ly peo­ple. She said Suni­ta would smile and wave every time she saw her.

“This is re­al­ly shock­ing,” she said.

An­oth­er neigh­bour said the cou­ple used to quar­rel a lot. De­scrib­ing their deaths as a tragedy, he said the com­mu­ni­ty was in shock, par­tic­u­lar­ly since such a hor­rif­ic in­ci­dent had nev­er hap­pened there be­fore.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered four 16-gauge Rem­ing­ton Ex­press car­tridges—three spent and one live—in the Rams’ home.

Of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion III and South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Cit­i­zens urged to help end

cy­cle of vi­o­lence

Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy yes­ter­day ex­pressed sad­ness over the re­cent re­ports of vi­o­lence against women and chil­dren across T&T and ex­pressed sym­pa­thies to the fam­i­lies of Suni­ta Ram and three-year-old Ja­reem George, who per­ished in an ar­son at­tack at his Arou­ca home by a per­son his fam­i­ly knew.

In a state­ment, the min­is­ter said, “I felt much dis­may and a heavy heart up­on learn­ing that they were re­port­ed­ly vic­tims in sep­a­rate cas­es of gen­der-based Vi­o­lence (GBV). In light of these heart­break­ing in­ci­dents, it is clear that our women and chil­dren con­tin­ue to be tar­gets of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence (DV).”

Urg­ing the na­tion to stand to­geth­er and say “NO” to all forms of vi­o­lence, both on the in­di­vid­ual and com­mu­ni­ty lev­els, she said, “I en­cour­age every­one who has been af­fect­ed by GBV to reach out and seek the help they need so that we as a so­ci­ety can put a stop to all forms of abuse.”

Al­so re­spond­ing to the mur­der-sui­cide in Williamsville, the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Re­source Net­work (IWRN) said it was deeply dis­turbed at the in­ci­dent.

In a state­ment, the or­gan­i­sa­tion made an ur­gent ap­peal to cou­ples to find am­i­ca­ble so­lu­tions to re­solve their dif­fer­ences or is­sues.

“Al­so, please avoid mak­ing ac­cu­sa­tions in the ab­sence of tan­gi­ble ev­i­dence and even if those ac­cu­sa­tions are true, think about mean­ing­ful so­lu­tions even if that means sep­a­rat­ing from each oth­er for a brief mo­ment.”

Ad­vis­ing that mur­der and/or sui­cide must nev­er be an op­tion, the group urged any­one who needs as­sis­tance to reach out to their team via its Face­book page.