As her killer raised a blade to deliver the vicious chop that ended her life, Gasparillo housewife Savitri Mohammed could not scream. She had been knocked unconscious by a blow to the head and her mouth and nose were plastered with duct tape.
The single blow that ultimately killed her severed her windpipe, throat and spinal cord, an autopsy done by forensic pathologist Dr Valerie Alexandrov at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, found yesterday.
Killed in her Bonne Aventure Road home on Wednesday morning, Mohammed’s life was snuffed out within minutes, Alexandrov told the T&T Guardian. He said Mohammed, 55, was punched once in the face, with the blow probably rendering her unconscious. Her killer then used duct tape to bind her ankles and wrists and covered her mouth and nose before chopping her neck so powerfully she was almost decapitated. He said the weapon was possibly heavy like a cutlass and the killer had to be very strong to execute such forceful, vicious blows.
“She sustained a severe, single chop wound to the left neck, almost decapitating her. So deep was the wound inflicted with a heavy weapon, that the amount of force that the person used, it severed her spine and she had a huge haemorrhage on her right face, covering her eye, so that person had to be really strong,” Alexandrov said.
Following Mohammed’s murder on Wednesday, her husband Sadiq, 43, told police he had left her at home around 10 am and gone to the bank. When he returned around noon, he said he found her lying dead on their bed with a wound to her neck. Police said there was no forced entry to the house, suggesting either the door was left open or Mohammed knew her killer.
Homicide detectives said a close male relative who gave them a statement on Wednesday was not considered a suspect. Up to late yesterday no suspects were identified, but police said they were hoping the autopsy results would assist their investigation.
Mohammed, a former cashier at Princess Cosmetics in San Fernando, was one of three women murdered in the last nine days. A funeral service is tentatively set for tomorrow.
