Guyanese kills married lover, self in Bronx
Stabroek News
August 13, 2004
A triangular affair ended in tragedy in the Bronx, New York on Wednesday, when a US-based Guyanese slit his married lover's throat then fell four storeys to his death after the noose he used to hang himself snapped.
Dead are Dhanraj Hamashwar, 40, and Anjelita Bangali, 32, both formerly of Guyana.
A New York Newsday report said Hamashwar was distraught over a souring relationship with Bangali, who had left her husband six months before and moved in with him.
Family members told the newspaper that Rakesh and Anjelita Bangali had met Hamashwar in Guyana many years ago. The Bangalis had migrated to the United States 12 years ago and had two daughters aged eight and 12 years old. They were still legally married when she was killed.
Anjelita and Rakesh Bangali had found work at factories upon arriving, she in the South Bronx, he in Queens. Both worked long hours, family members said.
Then in February, Bangali moved in with Hamashwar, also a factory worker at Streamline Plastic in the South Bronx.
"They were a very happy couple, just enjoying life. Then she leaves my son to live with her boyfriend," Ruby Bangali, 70, the deceased woman's mother-in-law, told Newsday through tears. "I just can't believe it."
"Danny was making a good sum of money," said Hamashwar's brother-in-law, Nandram Baljid. "I told him before that she was not divorced, that she is not a divorcee, and her husband is not dead. It's not good."
When police arrived at the scene of the incident shortly before 7 am, Hamashwar was lying in the concrete courtyard beneath his apartment at 1591 Townsend Ave, where he was pronounced dead. Police said he had stepped out onto a fire escape of the six-storey building and tried to hang himself.
Inside the apartment, Bangali also was pronounced dead, a deep knife wound across her throat, police said. A knife was found nearby.
Neighbours in the building said they didn't even know the incident took place; they heard no loud noise or screaming from the apartment, where a quiet couple was known to live.
At the same time, it also came as a shock to family members. Hamashwar's sister, Satti Baljid, 41, started to wail, then collapsed.
"I want my mother to be alive!" screamed one girl, identified as Bangali's 12-year-old daughter. The woman's estranged husband of Queens, also was there, but was too upset to speak.