Man sentenced to hang for murder of his wife, daughter

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

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A 33-year-old man from Bar­rack­pore has been sen­tenced to hang for the bru­tal mur­ders of his es­tranged com­mon-law wife and their 14-month-old daugh­ter.

The death penal­ty was twice read to Rishi “Cook Meat” Moti­lal on Mon­day, af­ter he was con­vict­ed of the mur­ders at the end of his judge-alone tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Nali­ni Singh.

Moti­lal was ac­cused of mur­der­ing his 34-year-old com­mon-law wife Tara Ram­sa­roop and their daugh­ter Sher­maya Ja­da Moti­lal on Oc­to­ber 8, 2024.

The moth­er and tod­dler’s bod­ies were found at Moti­lal’s home. Ram­sa­roop had been chopped mul­ti­ple times, while the ba­by’s throat had been slit. The cou­ple’s old­er chil­dren were not at home at the time.

The vi­o­lent killings came weeks af­ter Ram­sa­roop ob­tained a pro­tec­tion or­der against Moti­lal.

Be­fore be­ing ar­rest­ed, Moti­lal called sev­er­al rel­a­tives and con­fessed to the mur­ders.

He al­so con­fessed to po­lice when he was even­tu­al­ly ar­rest­ed. He claimed that he met Ram­sa­roop on the morn­ing of the in­ci­dent and they went to his house to have sex. He claimed that she told him about her new boyfriend, and that he would no longer be able to in­ter­act with their chil­dren. He ad­mit­ted that he hit her on her head with a length of iron be­fore chop­ping her sev­er­al times. He al­so claimed that he killed the child as he did not want her “to suf­fer by no­body.”

Dur­ing his tri­al, Moti­lal did not de­ny killing Ram­sa­roop and his daugh­ter but claimed that he was pro­voked by Ram­sa­roop. He al­so claimed that he “blacked out” af­ter strik­ing Ram­sa­roop and could not re­mem­ber chop­ping her and killing their child.

While be­ing in­tense­ly cross-ex­am­ined by As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Dy­lan Mar­tin, how­ev­er, Moti­lal ad­mit­ted that he em­bell­ished his claims over his ar­gu­ment with Ram­sa­roop in or­der to claim the de­fence, which could have re­sult­ed in him be­ing con­vict­ed of the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter.

Mar­tin al­so high­light­ed sev­er­al in­con­sis­ten­cies be­tween his pre­vi­ous con­fes­sions to rel­a­tives and the po­lice and his tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the tri­al.

In re­ject­ing Moti­lal’s de­fence, Jus­tice Singh found that Moti­lal did not lose self-con­trol as con­tend­ed.

“I find that he ex­pe­ri­enced anger, hurt, jeal­ousy, frus­tra­tion and emo­tion­al dis­tress but that he re­tained the ca­pac­i­ty for pur­pose­ful and di­rect­ed ac­tion at all ma­te­r­i­al times,” Jus­tice Singh said.

She ruled that even if Moti­lal had been pro­voked, the de­fence could not ap­ply to his daugh­ter.

“Sher­maya Moti­lal was a 14-month-old child. She said and did noth­ing provoca­tive,” Jus­tice Singh said.

She not­ed that the child was not killed ac­ci­den­tal­ly or by a mis­di­rect­ed blow and her death was in­tend­ed by her fa­ther.

“The de­lib­er­ate use of a cut­lass to the neck of a 14-month-old child ad­mits no rea­son­able in­fer­ence con­sis­tent with an ab­sence of such in­tent,” Jus­tice Singh said.

She al­so re­ject­ed his claims of him be­ing in­tox­i­cat­ed at the time.

“His own ac­count demon­strates a struc­tured and se­quen­tial rec­ol­lec­tion of events, which is in­con­sis­tent with any sug­ges­tion that he lacked the ca­pac­i­ty to form in­tent,” she said.

Moti­lal was al­so charged with ma­li­cious dam­age for set­ting fire to a car owned by the moth­er of Ram­sa­roop’s new boyfriend. He plead­ed guilty to the of­fence and Jus­tice Singh found that he had served his sen­tence for that crime while on re­mand await­ing tri­al.

Moti­lal was rep­re­sent­ed by Stephen Wil­son and Ayan­na Norville-Mod­este, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment (PDD). Josi­ah Soo Hon and Khi Cam­bridge ap­peared along­side Mar­tin for the State.