Police in New York have arrested and charged a Guyanese man with the murder of Guyanese Natasha Ramen who had her throat slit last week minutes after leaving her Queens apartment.
A report in yesterday’s New York Times said the man, Hemnant Megnath, 29, had been charged with raping 20-year-old Ramen some time ago and was due to make a court appearance on April 9. Ramen died last Thursday after being attacked outside her apartment.
Ramen reportedly met Megnath two years ago when she was looking for an apartment. He had promised to find her a home but instead took her to his apartment in Brooklyn and raped her.
According the New York Times, eight months passed before Ramen reported the rape and Megnath was arrested. He was placed on $5,000 bail and a protection order was issued against him barring him from contacting Ramen.
Megnath who reportedly worked as a lab assistant at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan tried contacting Ramen and consistently harassed her relatives in attempts to find her.
Ramen got married but Megnath was determined to find her. Police said he threatened Ramen’s in-laws and charges of aggravated harassment were filed against him. However, the family declined to press charges.
Though she was frightened, police said, Ramen planned to testify against Megnath. According to them, she wanted to tell her story but never got the chance.
On Thursday, shortly after 8 am, Ramen left the one-bedroom basement apartment she shared with her husband, Leonard Ramen, in Queens. She was on her way to her job as a secretary at a car service in Long Island City. She had just said goodbye to her landlady, who lives in the house above the basement, when suddenly the attacker was upon her.
The report said he came from behind encircling her with a bear hug. She managed two terrified shrieks before he forced her head back, plunged a knife into her neck, and drew it across her throat. The attacker fled, and Ramen slumped to the ground.
Ramen was taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital, where she clung to life for 14 hours. She was declared dead at 11.15 pm. Before the incident, Ramen and her husband had just returned from a week-long trip to Guyana.
The police then began looking for Megnath. He was found, and through lawyers, the police said, agreed to turn himself in yesterday morning. When he did not, they went looking for him. He was arrested at the home of a co-worker and charged him with first- and second-degree murder and with criminal possession of a weapon. Frederick J. Assenza, a lawyer, who represented Megnath on the rape charge, would not comment on the latest arrest.
Queens District Attorney, Richard A. Brown, lamented Ramen’s death. “This is a terribly sad and tragic case – not only in terms of the victim’s violent death but also because of the degradation and humiliation that she had allegedly previously suffered at the hands of the defendant,” he said.
Ramen’s parents live in Guyana, and were reportedly denied visas to travel to the United States for the funeral. So ten of Ramen’s relatives travelled to Guyana yesterday, escorting her body back for burial, as those still in Queens consoled themselves with Megnath’s arrest.
“We were praying, and saying maybe her soul would haunt him, and he would reveal himself,” a relative said.
Ramen’s relatives, reeling at the news of her death, converged at the home of her uncle, Narine P. Bharat, in Jamaica, Queens, a few blocks from Ramen’s home. There, Bharat said, they said prayers on behalf of her soul.
