Couple in suicide pact over mounting debt

Couple in suicide pact over mounting debt

Sharlene Rampersad
Published: Guardian
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Unable to repay thousands of dollars in debt, Couva couple Ralph Buchoon and Yvonne Arjoon, decided to commit suicide together on Sunday evening.

However, minutes after ingesting a weedicide, paraquat, Arjoon, 42, called out to her 65-year-old mother and confessed what she and her husband had done.

An ambulance was called and the pair were taken to the Couva Health Facility but Buchoon, also 42, was pronounced dead on arrival.

Arjoon, a mother of two teenagers, was transferred to the San Fernando General Hospital and remains warded in a critical condition. The teens live with their father, who separated from Arjoon years ago.

Her mother, Leela Arjoon, told the T&T Guardian yesterday Yvonne was in a lot of pain.

“She was speaking a little but she has a lot of pain. The doctors say the medicine taking a while to work on her,” Leela said. “She didn’t ask for him or anything because the two of them plan that together.”

Leela said the couple, who usually sold fruits together close to the Point Lisas roundabout, returned to their home at Perseverance Village, Couva, around 3 pm on Sunday.

“They come home around 3 o’clock, they bathe, eat and then they sit down inside drinking like they always do. About 5 o’clock I come downstairs to feed my chickens and I hear Yvonne bawling.”

When Leela pulled aside a curtain, the scene waiting in her daughter’s one-room apartment was chilling.

“She was mess up with the gramoxone and bawling, telling me ‘Ma meh chest hurting meh!’ and when I ask what she do, she say, ‘Ma I can’t take it again, we owing too much people money...he drink first and then he give me the bottle.’”

Ralph was already frothing from the mouth and hanging off a chair. Leela said the couple had apparently been planning to take their lives for sometime.

“They took fruits on consignment from people and when the people come for their money, they couldn’t pay but I didn’t know all these things. Some people tell them they will come with police for them and some people does come by the house regularly looking for them.”

Leela, who has six other children, said she rescued the couple a few years ago when they had nowhere else to turn.

“They didn’t have nowhere to live and I tell them come and live by me but when two of them drink they always fighting and arguing. I used to come downstairs and tell she ‘Yvonne, when you done drink, go lie down and sleep,’ but she never listened.”

The elderly woman could not say where or when Ralph would be laid to rest.

There are many persons who are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the stresses that accompany high death issues that they currently faceing. Sometimes they have exhausted all possible relief opportunities and have drifted into a state of despair and hopelessness. I say to them don't give up, hang in there, you may lose some important things, however, as long as there is life there is hope. There is the possibility that you will be able to rebound.

really ? ..... cope while six feet under

Only Chin can pull that off !! 

sounds fishy.

miss de bus as usual ?

talking bout u being 6 feet under 

You dont know how to get to 6 feet under ???

Lawwwddd Your stupidity knows no bounds 

They should have asked for help before taking such an extreme step.

I think who owned the debt is as important as any other aspect of this story.

if they smart enuff to get debt then they smart enough to have a known a bit about how to handle the situation should things go south..indeed how to arrange the debt up front in their favour as much as they could...

unless they lending money to people now who doh have means to repay and too stupid to really function properly in the society

anyhow this is a Chinlong thread with its typical illogicality at its centre, making sense of it very difficult indeed