Man held for Patricia Sanasie’s execution

Deokaran Ram and Patricia Sanasie in happier times

Two weeks after Patricia Sanasie, wife of popular city businessman Deokaran Ram Sanasie, was gunned down in front of her home in Atlantic Gardens, East Coast Demerara, the Police have arrested a man who matched the description given to them.

The suspect was picked up on Norton Street, Georgetown on Saturday. He is presently being grilled by investigators at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). He is expected to be placed on an identification parade today at which the daughter of the dead woman who witnessed the shooting will have an opportunity to point out her mother’s killer.

A senior Police rank stated that the dead woman’s husband was also listed as a suspect in the matter and said once that was firmly established, all arrangements would be made for his extradition from the United States of America. The rank stated that they had reason to believe that the businessman might have been involved in his wife’s execution.

However, in a recent interview with the Guyana Times from his New York City home, the widower said that he did not know anything about his wife’s killing. He stressed that he has been in the US since early December and knew nothing of the shooting.

In February 2014, Ram was shot three times about his body while outside his business place on Fourth and Light Streets, Alberttown, Georgetown. The businessman had claimed that his wife and her younger brother were behind the failed attempt on his life, but this was denied by the two siblings.

Sanasie said that he and his wife have been separated since his shooting last year and he had ceased all contact with her. He said he left his wife alone so that she could figure out what she had to and find her way back to him. The couple had been together for the past 28 years and had three daughters ages 25, 22, and 14. Sanasie also claimed that there had been room for a possible reconciliation.

On the night of the shooting, the now dead woman and one of her daughters, Romona, had returned home from church around 19:10h, when the 45-year-old exited the vehicle to open the gate so that her daughter could drive into the yard.

It was while doing so the lone gunman confronted her and pumped at least four bullets into the woman’s body. She reportedly fell to the ground and was quickly picked up and rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Relatives of the dead woman, including her daughters, thought that it was payback time following the attempted execution of her father by three men on bicycles. They believe that the businessman might have paid a hefty sum to have her killed.