A quiet residential neighborhood in Mayo, Bonne Aventure, became the site of a terrifying violent crime earlier this week, when three masked armed intruders forced their way into the home of 81-year-old pensioner Baboolal “Pike” Ramnarace, binding and robbing him and his 67-year-old companion Minnie Hosein before escaping with thousands in cash, a vehicle, and even the couple’s prepared cooked food. The Tuesday midday attack has left the two elderly victims shaken, with Ramnarace saying he is convinced the robbery was a coordinated set-up planned after the pair made a recent bank withdrawal.
The routine of Ramnarace and Hosein unfolded as normal on the morning of the incident. The couple left the home early to stock up on groceries and collect prescription medication, returning to the Cotton Hill Road residence before noon. After sharing lunch, Ramnarace withdrew to his bedroom for an afternoon nap, while Hosein stayed behind in the kitchen to wrap up post-meal chores. That is when the intruders struck.
Ramnarace described disorienting moment between sleep and wakefulness, when he heard Hosein screaming from the kitchen. At first, he assumed she had been startled by a rodent or other household pest. But before he could even fully stand to investigate, one of the intruders was already in his bedroom, pinning him to the mattress. The attacker pressed a loaded gun directly to Ramnarace’s head, bound his wrists tight with plastic zip ties, and gagged him with a pillowcase. The men then dragged Hosein from the kitchen into the bedroom, tying her to the bed beside Ramnarace.
All three attackers were fully disguised, Ramnarace told reporters, with full-body coverings that left only their eyes visible. No facial features could be identified, making initial witness descriptions for investigators limited. In a moment of bold defiance amid the terror, Ramnarace challenged the armed men when one pressed the gun to his temple. “Under the excitement, I done kind of fed up, I tell him pull the damn trigger and let we dismiss the case and done,” he recalled.
Hosein shared her own harrowing account of the ambush, saying the attack unfolded with shocking speed. “They put a gun behind my head and they say, ‘Where the money, where the key, where the car?’ I start to bawl, and they take the kitchen cloth and shove it in my mouth and take me to the room,” she said during an interview with local reporters at her Mayo village home on Wednesday. “That happen so fast. So fast, they pull out that car from downstairs. What you don’t expect in life, in my old days, now look what happen to me.”
In total, the intruders stole $2,000 in cash from Ramnarace and an additional $1,500 belonging to Hosein. They also made off with Ramnarace’s silver 1994 Nissan B11, which carries registration number PBJ 9044 and has an estimated market value of roughly $30,000. In a bizarre final detail, the robbers also took a cooking pot holding four prepared chicken feet that the couple had set aside for their meal.
After the attackers fled the property in the stolen car, Ramnarace and Hosein managed to wriggle free from their restraints. They immediately alerted nearby neighbors, who contacted local police to file a report. As investigators launched a manhunt for the three suspects and efforts to locate the stolen vehicle, the victims are still processing the emotional trauma of the attack.
Ramnarace, who says he has lived a quiet, uneventful life in the community for decades, said he has been unable to shake the fear and anxiety from the incident. “Since I born, I living a nice life. If you know how that worry me. I steady crying for that,” he said. He added that he is convinced the attack was pre-planned: the couple had just withdrawn a sum of several thousand dollars from a local bank before returning home, and Ramnarace believes they were followed by the robbers, who targeted them specifically for the cash. “We just come out the bank. A few thousands; I can’t remember how much…they set up we,” he said.