Blame PPP drug dealer for killing this lady

Killer was offered $2.5M to execute cosmetologist

 
- Woman was accused of causing drug bust  

Police on the East Coast of Demerara are now certain that the murder of Lusignan cosmetologist Ashmini  Harriram was not a robbery but rather a paid hit ordered by persons connected to the trade in illicit drugs.
Investigators are basing this conclusion on the testimonies given by the person who allegedly committed the act and the driver of the getaway car.
According to a source close to the investigation, the prime suspect, Lennox Wayne called ‘Two Colours’, told investigators that he was offered $2.5M to kill Harriram.

Ashmini Harriram

He and the getaway driver were arrested on Wednesday and they have both implicated a close relative of the dead woman and another man, who according to investigators has links to the drugs trade.
Harriram’s relative and the other man were picked up hours after the police detained Wayne and the driver, and are being grilled by detectives.
On July 10 last, Harriram, 19, was about six houses away from her Lot 9 Lusignan Railway Embankment home when the killer emerged from what eyewitnesses described as a burgundy-coloured vehicle and shot her at close range to the right side of the head. The killer then re-entered the car which sped away leaving the mortally wounded woman on the roadway.
She was subsequently transported to the Georgetown Hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Immediately after Harriram’s murder, questions were raised as to the motive of the killing, since it was almost clear that robbery was not the real motive. The slain teen was wearing a gold chain at the time of her death, but the gunman reportedly made no attempt to relieve her of the jewellery.
According to reports reaching this newspaper, detectives managed to locate the driver with the burgundy-coloured car in the city and he admitted that he was there when Harriram was shot.
He told investigators that he had picked up the shooter whose name was given as Lennox Wayne called ‘Two Colours’ in the city, and was asked to take him to see his girlfriend on the East Coast of Demerara.
The driver claimed that while they were in Lusignan, his passenger, Wayne, saw two females and asked him to stop the vehicle. One of the women was Harriram.
The driver said that Wayne approached the two women and a few seconds later he heard a gunshot and Wayne hurriedly re-entered the car and ordered him to drive. They headed back to the city where Wayne exited the car.
Kaieteur News was unable to ascertain why the driver did not report the matter to the police. However, on Wednesday he led investigators to Wayne, a resident of Leopold Street, Charlestown, who was promptly arrested. Now investigators are piecing together the evidence they have gathered so far and a clear picture is emerging.
According to a source, investigators have managed to obtain information that there was a drug bust a few days before Harriram was killed. They were told that one of the men in custody claimed to have lost a large amount of money as a result of the bust and accused Harriram’s close relative, who is closely associated with him, of snitching.
The dead woman’s relative, who is involved in the salted fish business, denied the allegation and suggested that it might have been Harriram, who he claimed had previously threatened to expose his alleged illegal dealings.
Investigators were told that a plan was hatched to eliminate the woman and Wayne was reportedly contracted to do the job and to retrieve her cellular phone to ascertain if she had been in contact with anti narcotics agents.
“What we have learnt is that the relative provided information on Harriram’s whereabouts on the day she was killed. That is how the killer who was waiting in a taxi was able to identify her after she emerged from a mini bus at Lusignan,” a source told Kaieteur News.
This newspaper understands that police were able to zero in on the matter after mistrust developed between the killer and the person who contracted him.
Investigators have indicated that the killer did not receive a cent for the hit.
Meanwhile yesterday, at the Lusignan home where the dead woman lived, her mother Khemwattie Samaroo, who was too devastated to speak, expressed shock at the new developments. She said that ever since her daughter was killed, she has been waiting patiently on the police to apprehend the killers and now that persons were arrested, she does not know how to respond, since it now involves a relative.
She explained that Wednesday night, her daughter who lives next door to her called out and informed her that the police had arrested her husband.
According to Samaroo, when she asked for the reason behind the arrest, her daughter told her that it had “something to do with Ashmini’s shooting,” but she didn’t think it was anything serious.
She recalled that during her daughter’s funeral, she overheard people talking that there was a drug connection in the family, but when she confronted her other daughter, she denied.
“I don’t know my son-in-law doing drugs…I never suspected anything. For years I know my daughter them doing shark work and my son-in-law works very hard in sun and in rain,” Samaroo said.
She added that although she knows that her son-in-law is a quiet person, she will not put her “head on a block” for him.
“I don’t know what to do and I don’t know what to say,” the distraught woman related.
She revealed that when her daughter was shot and killed, she was convinced that it wasn’t a robbery since her daughter was wearing a gold chain and the shooter did not remove it.
“If you gon rob someone, you will take whatever you can get, and this person did not rob the girl who was with my daughter, they only took my daughter phone,” Samaroo said.
Investigators hope to conclude most of their probe in order to file charges early next week.