New Jersey domestic row
Three Guyanese women brutally stabbed to death
Man detained
Stabroek News
August 1, 2002
New Jersey, USA police yesterday detained the husband of one of the three Guyanese women who were found brutally stabbed to death early Tuesday morning in their Lot 10 Fox Place home.
One of the women's two sons made the grisly discovery which investigators say could have been a result of a domestic dispute fuelled by a religious row between the children's aunt and her husband.
According to reports yesterday in The Jersey Journal News and the New York Post, the victims were identified as Bernadette Seajatan, 49 and her two daughters, Sharon Yassin 30 and Marlyn Hassan 28, who was pregnant with twins at the time of her death.
The trio lived in a modest two-story home with Andrew Yassin, 5 and Christopher Yassin, 2 and their husbands, one of whom is Alim Hassan, the man detained by police for questioning.
Stabroek News understands that Hassan, who hails from a West Coast Demerara village migrated to the USA recently.
The three women are also said to be originally from Leonora on the West Coast of Demerara.
Police described the incident as a "horrific" domestic crime.
Upon discovering the three lifeless bodies just after 7 am on Tuesday, the oldest of the two children walked across the street to a neighbour's house and told the occupants that his relatives were dead and asked them to call the police.
The women were stabbed multiple times and the bloody handprint of Bernadette was found on one of the front windows as she tried to escape from the clutches of the killer, according to Donna Duesbury, a cousin of the family.
The victims were all found in pools of blood, Sharon and Bernadette in their bedrooms and Marlyn in the hallway. "It was quite horrific. There was quite a bit of blood," one of the reports quoted a detective as saying.
Police were confident that the incident did not occur as a result of a stranger-on-stranger situation.
A neighbour of the three recalled that she was awakened by knocking and on checking she found the child standing in a white T-shirt, shorts and his mother's wooden sandals.
"He said `My grandma, my aunt, my mother's dead. Can you please call the police?" the neighbour said.
Another neighbour said that child told her, "My mommy's dead. Please call 911."
Grieving relatives of the trio, including Donna and Bernadette's husband, Baldeo Seajatan, 51, said that Alim Hassan, a auto mechanic, had been engaged in a bitter, ongoing dispute with his wife over what religion they would raise the twins.
The entire family is Hindu, except for Alim, who's a devout Muslim, the relatives said.
"They would fight [all the time] over what religion the children would be," the grieving Baldeo was quoted as saying adding that Alim demanded that Marlyn convert to Islam and that "he got crazy over the last few months" over the issue of faith.
"She didn't want to become a practising Muslim," said Baldeo, a NJ Transit bus driver.
Further, he was quoted as saying, "My daughter was very tired and she was pregnant and she wouldn't pray five times a day. He [was really] mad over that."
According to the reports neighbours said the family has lived on the block for about five years. They were remembered as a "happy" bunch, with the three men working to support the women, who were often seen outside of the house.
They also said at Christmas there were brilliant lights on the house.
One neighbour was quoted as saying, "The older woman, the grandmother, she cared so much for those children. I feel a sense of loss because they are part of my neighbourhood."
They were said to be "beautiful" people adding that Sharon loved playing outside with her kids.
"They were three very beautiful women. This is terrible. I've never heard of anything like this happening on this block", a neighbour said.