Man dies after murdering wife, setting house on fire in Cummings Lodge

Police are investigating the murder of 50-year-old Paula Abraham, who was stabbed to death by her husband, Ishwar Singh, 46, in the wee hours of Wednesday at their Second Street, Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara house.

Police Headquarters reported that Singh reportedly set the house on fire after committing the gruesome act and escaped with burns on his body. He sought medical attention at the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he eventually died at around 10:10 hrs.

According to the police report, the couple’s 24-year-old daughter, who works as a security guard, was present in the house at the time of the incident. She reported that her father is an alcoholic who usually beats her mother and had threatened to kill her in the past.

The young woman said that her mother’s screams woke her up, and then she felt heat in the house; she immediately got up, opened the southern door of the house, and escaped.

She claimed that the fire started on a ‘sofa chair’ and spread to the rest of the house; she also saw when her father exited the house through the northern door of the lower flat.

The Fire Service was immediately informed, and they responded and extinguished the fire. The upper flat of the house was damaged, while the lower flat was partly burnt.

The dead woman was found lying on a sponge mattress in her bedroom with a stab wound to the left side of her neck, with what appeared to be blood stains on her clothing and on the bed.

“The victim’s body did not receive ‘burn marks’, nor the mattress,” the police release noted.

According to the report, the suspect was taken to the public hospital by relatives. The investigation is ongoing.