Man arrested for stabbing, nearly decapitating wife: Queens DA

A Queens man was charged with the murder of his wife after he nearly decapitated her with a kitchen knife, authorities said on Monday.

Prem Rampersaud, 50, was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the Dec. 5 murder of his common-law wife, 46-year-old Rajwantie Baldeo, prosecutors said. If convicted, Rampersaud faces up to 25 years to life in prison.

“This was an especially violent crime in which the defendant is accused of viciously taking the life of the woman he purportedly loved by repeatedly stabbing her following a heated verbal argument,” Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said. “If convicted, her brutal and senseless death merits serious punishment.”

Rampersaud waited for Baldeo just after midnight Monday as she was on her way home from her restaurant job, Brown said. When the two met up near the corner of 124th Street and 103rd Avenue in Richmond Hill, Rampersaud allegedly stabbed Baldeo around her torso and neck — for four minutes, according to ABC7—nearly decapitating her.

EMS took Baldeo to Jamaica Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Rampersaud was temporarily living with a friend in South Richmond Hill while he and Baldeo, both from Guyana, were living apart, ABC7 reported.