An Annandale man murdered his reputed wife yesterday morning, partly severing her head, before hanging himself from a bedroom ceiling.
Dead is 26-year-old Shallini Singh also called `Shalo' of 12 Droom Street, Annandale, East Coast Demerara and Dhanraj Persaud called `Budsey' whom she had been living with for a few years
Singh, who was slain in front of her six-year-old daughter, had only last week made an attempt to leave when she obtained a restraining order from the police preventing the man from entering her home.
Jenny, who rents the woman's downstairs apartment, told Stabroek News that early Sunday evening Persaud, originally from Berbice, had visited and spoken to the woman, who stayed behind bolted doors while he asked her to take him back.
Singh reportedly told him to go away. But he began verbally abusing her, then entered the yard and went upstairs and waited outside the locked door.
The Annandale home in which Shallini Singh was hacked to death by her husband, who then hanged himself.
She threatened to call the police, which kept him quiet for a short time before he started up again.
Jenny said that some time past midnight, she got up to feed her daughter and she heard noise on the zinc roof, but did not pay too much attention to it.
Shortly after, she heard Singh saying, "How you get in hey? You break and enter."
Then she heard the woman say, "Chop me if a dah you come with the cutlass fa. Chop me and done."
Jenny said that after not hearing anything for a while, she called out for the woman asking her if she was okay. Singh did not respond, instead Persaud called back, "Everything finish and done with now."
Soon after, Jenny said, she saw "thick, thick" blood seeping through the flooring above her and she started calling out to neighbours.
She said the woman's daughter then started to scream for help. Because the door was locked they could not get inside but told the child to take the "bellna" (rolling pin) and knock the bolt. The child did this and ran down the stairs.
By then the woman's parents, who live in nearby Mon Repos, arrived at the house and called the police.
According to Jenny, Singh was found in a sitting position at the side of the bed with her head hanging off while Persaud was found dangling from the ceiling.
The man had cut the phone line, having gained entry to the house through a small opening in the kitchen.
The deceased's mother Sharma Singh, told this newspaper that last week the man had burst her daughter's head forcing her to report the matter.
She said even though her daughter had said the relationship was over Persaud would still visit their home and they accepted him since he did not "show we a bad face." She said he worked with her son as a porter and would be at their home most of the day or out at the corner talking with his friends.
"I never know he woulda do something like that. I know they had problems but like all man and wife and I didn't think it woulda gone so far."
The now orphaned daughter, who was the product of a previous relationship, reportedly told her grandparents that she was sleeping next to her mother when the man arrived in the room. She thought the man was beating her mother with a belt, not knowing it was a cutlass.
After this, she saw him tie a rope to the ceiling and hang himself. Singh was the only daughter for her parents and was the third of four children.
The couple had returned from Brazil a few months ago where they had been trying to make a new life.
The woman had put her home up for sale because of the continued violence on the East Coast and was planning to purchase a home closer to her parents.