Widow's charred corpse found in cassava patch

October 23, 2009 11:55:47 AM

• A⁺ 
• A^-
• |
• 
• |
• 
• |
• 

The badly burnt body of a 57-year-old widow was discovered in a cassava patch near her house in Toorak, Suva in the early hours of this morning.

Dawashwari Devi was last seen in her house at 2am this morning by daughter-in-law Ashni Chand.

“She always helps me with breakfast preparations in the morning but today she didn’t come to the kitchen so I continued with my work,” Chand told FijiLive.

Chand said she and her husband, Devi’s son Rajnesh Prasad, realised Devi was not in the house when they discovered that she was not in her room later in the morning.

“We started the search and later found her a few metres from the house lying in the cassava patch all burnt.”

Devi’s face and lower body were severely burnt.

The family was only able to identify her from the bracelet on her wrist.

Chand said Devi had been complaining about lack of sleep for the past two weeks.

“I can’t sleep, there is something crawling on my body,” was what Devi kept telling Chand, according to the daughter-in-law.

Devi was a patient of the Saint Giles psychiatric hospital in 2001, while suffering from depression.

She was discharged after eight months and was doing well, Chand said.

“My mother-in-law never left the house without telling us but I don’t know why she did this time,” she said.

A post-mortem examination will be carried out today.

* Get the latest weather on your phone. Txt VLWH to 333 now