Penal man, 36, charged with killing ex-murder convict, 43

A 36-year-old man has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend, a former convict whose body was found wrapped in tarpaulin in 2022, days after a relative reported her missing.

On January 20, Reginald Smart, 36, of Bobb Trace, off Penal Rock Road in Penal, appeared before a High Cout master in the South Court A, charged with the murder of Kareen Ramlal, 43. She was beaten to death.

Smart was denied bail and remanded into police custody.

A sufficiency hearing has been set for September 3.

WPC Murren, of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations, Region Three, laid the charge, after receiving instructions from deputy director of public prosecutions Sabrina Doudgeen-Jaglal over the weekend.

Ramlal, of Pasea in Tunapuna, was last seen alive on July 31, 2022.

Days later, on August 7, 2022, her decomposing body was found in an overgrown area at Bobb Trace.

Investigators found a hammer, believed to be the murder weapon, and personal items near the body.

Ramlal and two others were charged with the May 2006 murder of her common-law husband, Anil Jadoo.

In January 2021, Ramlal and the two accomplices were sentenced for poisoning Jadoo with a meal of stewed goat and then bludgeoning him to death.

In December 2021, Ramlal was released from prison after serving her sentence.

On her release, Ramlal found work as a security guard.