Petty Mahabir-Chaitram’s story was not a happy one, but she was just starting to turn that around when her husband caught up to her and changed all of that again.
Petty Mahabir-Chaitram was originally from Trinidad, where she had married and had three children. When her children were still very small, her first husband died and she remarried Mathura Chaitram. The two lived in Trinidad and raised the children together until last year, when they decided to move to Canada. Sadly, shortly after they moved, Chaitram started hitting the children and being very rough with them. To remove her children from the situation, Petty found a two-bedroom basement apartment on Vivaldi Crescent in Brampton for her and her children to move into. The family of four had been in the apartment for less than two months when Chaitram showed up on April 1, 2011 and fatally stabbed Petty, just before stabbing himself.
Inside the house on Friday morning, Anjum Syed, the owner of the house, was upstairs with his children preparing for their day. Little did they know that downstairs, Chaitram had come over to argue with Mahabir-Chaitram, and the argument escalated to the point where they both went outside into the side yard. It was there, by Syed’s patio stones, that Chaitram stabbed his wife and himself. Syed nor his family had any idea that anything was transpiring until children started to gather on his front lawn and look through a fence to the backyard. Syed quickly went downstairs to Mahabir-Chaitram’s children and led them outside, away from where their mother lay out back.
The Syed family had only kind things to say about the family, saying that they were very quiet, never raised a commotion, and they never heard any arguing coming from the lower apartment. Syed’s daughter, who went to school with Mahabir-Chaitram’s youngest child, also said that the boy was very quiet and very kind.
Mahabir-Chaitram’s niece, Asha Mahabir, aged 36, flew from Trinidad where she lives on Wednesday to take the three children back to Trinidad.
