No closure to wife’s murder 31 years ago
FOR 31 years Thilak Rambachan has been haunted by his wife’s unsolved murder.
“I just want to know why. Why did he (the killer) rob me of my wife and my children of their mother?” said the tearful 78-year-old.
His wife Saras was strangled to death during a robbery at their family home in Unit 1, Chatsworth, in August 1987. She was 39 years old and working as an Afrikaans teacher at the Apollo High School.
On the day of the murder, she was on leave and at home with the couple’s then four-year-old daughter, Merushca. Their other two children Rishen, 7, and Jessica, 13, at the time, were at school.
“I remember the day like it was yesterday. We had a gardener who was employed with us for about five months working in the yard. We treated him well and he seemed like a good person,” Rambachan said.
He still believes the gardener knew what happened that day.
The retired Unisa administrator said Merushca was locked up in a cupboard. “Four hours after the attack Rishen arrived home from school only to hear his sister’s cries coming from the cupboard. When he released her she was hysterical. Rishen then went to our bedroom where he found his mother’s dead body.”
Rambachan said the children sought help from neighbours who in turn contacted him and the police.
“Merushca gave police a statement (mentioning the gardener). Soon after my wife’s death we tracked him to Isipingo,” he said, adding they, however, were unable to determine his exact whereabouts. “I even put articles in the then
offering a reward for anyone who knew his whereabouts but nothing came out of it.”
Rambachan said the case was then transferred to then murder and robbery squad detectives Bushy and Patrick Singh, who managed to track one of the gardener’s relatives to Pietermaritzburg. But he was in a psychiatric institution and was no help.
“Since then we have not been able to find him. I don’t know if he is alive or dead. We still have not been given her post-mortem results and her cause of death on her death certificate says ‘investigating,’” he said.
“I did not have the money to hire private investigators. I continued to rely on the state to investigate. I had to raise the children on my own with the help of my mother, Parbathia.
“Her killer got to live his life with his children and wife if he had any. But we had to suffer,” added Rambachan.
He said he eventually re-married. “I needed that additional help. It was hard being a father and mother to three children. For them losing their mother was not easy. Rishen has not even spoken up to this day about her death and what he saw.”
Rambachan said he was left very angry and bitter. “At one point I was even fingered as a suspect in her murder and this has been haunting me for last 31 years and by not finding her killer, I live with a guilty conscience that I have not done enough to give her the justice she deserves.”
Despite his pain, Rambachan successfully graduated with a BA in sociology and criminology. Jessica, 44, is a senior radiographer, Rishen, 39, is an electrician and Mersushca, 35, has a BCom degree in financial management.
The family lived in the same home for many years after the murder. “We chose to live in the home despite the tragedy because even if we had moved out, the memories of her death would still be etched in our minds and hearts,” said Rambachan.