Murder-suicide suspected in death of UNC councillor, husband

SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) coun­cil­lor Romona Vic­tor and her hus­band, Rod­ney Ram­sumair, were found dead in their Siparia home yes­ter­day, in what po­lice sus­pect may have been a mur­der-sui­cide.

As of last evening, po­lice were still work­ing to as­cer­tain the de­tails sur­round­ing their deaths. Of­fi­cers did not re­lease in­for­ma­tion as to the man­ner in which the cou­ple lost their lives.

Vic­tor, 36, was the lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Siparia East/San Fran­cique South at the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, and her hus­band, 45, was em­ployed as a labour­er at the Cor­po­ra­tion. The cou­ple leaves be­hind a young son.

The trag­ic dis­cov­ery was made by Vic­tor’s fa­ther, Fran­cis, who went to their home on Pe­nal Road, Coo­ra Branch Road, to drop off pro­duce from his gar­den. When he ar­rived, he called out to them sev­er­al times but re­ceived no re­sponse.

Con­cerned, he en­tered the house and found their life­less bod­ies in a bed­room. His daugh­ter’s body was cov­ered.

“When I saw her face, I knew she was dead,” said Ri­car­do, stand­ing out­side the home with his wife, Lau­ra, while po­lice processed the scene.

“To wit­ness that… I would not like any­body to wit­ness that. It is not a nice ex­pe­ri­ence for any man to take,” said the fa­ther, who still ap­peared to be in a state of shock.

“Right now I am in a dif­fer­ent zone. I am just hop­ing, by the grace of God, to stay strong.”

Vic­tor’s moth­er said she last saw her daugh­ter on Fri­day and was aware that she and her hus­band had mar­i­tal prob­lems. “It is sad, but I was not ex­pect­ing that. They had an in-and-out re­la­tion­ship, but not to reach that far, like they ran out of hope.”

Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo ex­pressed his deep sad­ness, re­call­ing that he re­ceived the news around 4 pm, but it took him about 30 min­utes to con­firm the tragedy.

Vic­tor served two terms as a lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Siparia East/San Fran­cique South. He said her ded­i­ca­tion to her con­stituents and her work on the front­lines of protests left a last­ing im­pact on the com­mu­ni­ty.

“It is very sad for us that she was found in this man­ner. I can­not ex­plain the grief we feel right now, not on­ly in the Bor­ough but al­so in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. She stood up for what was right and made prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion for her peo­ple in her elec­toral dis­trict.”

Of­fi­cers of the South­ern West­ern Di­vi­sion and the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.