Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 05, 2019 News
Mississauga, Canada (www.thespec.com)- On a June evening 18 years ago, Mohan Ramkissoon surely felt confiden
t he was home free, moments before boarding a flight to South America at Pearson Airport along with his two young children.
He had told his travel agent when he booked three one-way tickets to Guyana the day before, that he needed to return to his home country due to a “death in the family.”
And so there had been, by his own hand: In the fall of 2000, Ramkissoon bludgeoned his spouse, Yvette Budram, to death with a hammer, strangled her, and left her body in a field in Flamborough near African Lion Safari.
He never made the flight, accosted in the terminal and ultimately arrested by Hamilton police, who pursued him in a forensic investigation worthy of TV’s “CSI” and detailed in a Spectator series and book titled “Post-Mortem: Justice at Last for Yvette Budram.”
And now, 17 years after his arrest, Ramkissoon is still trying in vain to get out of the country.
Two weeks ago, Ramkissoon, who was convicted for second-degree murder in 2004, was denied in his second attempt at parole that the Parole Board of Canada said would have resulted in his deportation. (He is not a Canadian citizen.)
In its ruling, the parole board said Ramkissoon — who is in a minimum security prison — has made positive strides in his rehabilitation, including finally admitting his guilt after years of denial, and is considered at low risk of reoffending.
On the other hand, the board’s ruling said he still presents “an undue risk to society” because he would be released in Guyana “without any special conditions or formal supervision to monitor your risk,” and that supports awaiting him there — “collateral parties” — may be unaware that he killed his spouse.
Also, while the board said Ramkissoon has shown increased self-awareness of his violent actions in the context of an intimate relationship, “your gains … remain untested as you have been incarcerated … You have not had any relationships since murdering your wife.”
Yvette Budram’s body was not found for six months after she was killed in her Mississauga home. A jogger discovered her decomposed body along a country road.
Ironically, her body was identified using fingerprints that were on a police database because Ramkissoon himself had charged her with assault one month before he killed her.
Meanwhile, the parole board decision shows that the shadow of a cold case homicide in New York City in December 1987 continues to hang over Ramkissoon.
The board noted that it is aware Ramkissoon has been identified in the past as a prime suspect in the murder of Rampati Chattergoon in the Bronx. She was the mother of a young woman he had wanted to date back then. Chattergoon was beaten and stabbed to death.
But Ramkissoon has not been charged for Chattergoon’s murder, and the board ruled that since it is “not an investigative body,” it “places no weight on these allegations” in the decision to deny parole.
Still, that homicide 31 years ago is referenced several times in the board’s ruling.
Attending his parole board hearing, Ramkissoon was made only too aware that there are those for whom Rampati Chattergoon’s death and his alleged involvement remains top of mind.
Two women travelled north from New York to attend the hearing: Radhica Rudolph and Edith Rodriguez.
Rudolph is one of Chattergoon’s daughters.
And Rodriguez is a detective with the Bronx Homicide Task Force.
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