Marine Cpl. Aaron Saran and Omadevi (Annie) Saran hold their marriage certificate and (inset) seal deal with a big kiss. Last October, cops found her body, burned beyond recognition, in the backseat of her car while Saran was at Camp Pendleton.
His pregnant wife was murdered while he was off serving in the United States Marines.
The body of Omadevi (Annie) Saran, 22, was found at 4 a.m. on Oct. 9, 2010. She had been burned beyond recognition in her white 2000 BMW on 130th St. and Jamaica Ave. in Queens while her husband, Cpl. Aaron Saran, was stationed in Camp Pendleton, Calif., ready to be deployed to Afghanistan.
This gruesome murder barely made news.
Worse, it’s hardly been an NYPD investigation, according to the grieving husband, who will be deployed overseas next week.
So Cpl. Saran flew into town on military leave last week to hire private detective Ed Dowd, a retired NYPD homicide detective, because he believes detectives of the 102nd Precinct Squad are doing nothing to solve his wife’s murder.
Aaron met Annie at a family function in 2006. They married on June 6, 2009.
“I joined the Marines in September 2009,” Saran says. “I was stationed in Camp Pendleton in October 2010, scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan in February 2011. On Oct. 1, Annie flew to New York to visit her mother. I was going to meet Annie in Queens on leave on Oct. 12.”
The Sarans kept a joint bank account where Annie held money for her Guyanese immigrant mother, who needed to withdraw $5,000 to lend to a friend.
“We stayed in touch by phone every day,” Aaron says. “She drove our second car, an old BMW that we kept at her mother’s house. Everything was fine.”
Then on Oct. 8, Aaron didn’t hear from Annie.
“Her phone went straight to voicemail all day and night,” he says. “And in addition to the $5,000 withdrawn for her mom, another $7,000 was missing. I called Annie’s family. They hadn’t seen or heard from her in over 24 hours.”
Cpl. Saran filed a missing persons report in San Diego. Annie’s family tried to make a similar report at the 106th Precinct in Queens, but Aaron claims they wouldn’t take it.
“I couldn’t sleep all night, worrying,” he says.
Back in Queens, Aaron’s mother called the 102nd Precinct about Annie. She was told cops found her BMW. Burning. With the body of a woman in the backseat. They thought it was Annie.
“I cried all night,” Aaron said.
When Saran arrived in New York the next morning, detectives grilled him as a possible suspect, asking whether Annie had been carrying another man’s baby. Finally, DNA confirmed that the baby was his.
“They stopped treating me like a suspect,” he says. “They told me Annie had received a phone call on Oct. 8 from a pay phone in Manhattan. Security camera footage showed a man on that pay phone at that same time. It was Annie’s uncle, Victor Persuad, a truck driver for Fresh Direct.”
“The PD also had bank footage of Annie making the second large withdrawal,” says Dowd, the private investigator. “And parked outside the bank is a truck that looks just like Victor Persuad’s.”
Says Cpl. Saran, “The detectives at the 102nd Precinct said they couldn’t locate the uncle. He’d quit his job the day after Annie’s murder and went to Canada.
When I heard he was back in Queens, I tracked him down. Told the cops where he was. They picked him up and brought him in for questioning. Then let him go. The detectives told me he refused to talk.”
Cpl. Saran says, right after, Persuad fled to Canada.
“And the 102nd Precinct detectives have not called me since,” he says. “I call them from California all the time. They always say there’s nothing new. Or they don’t return my phone calls.”
Dowd, who recently did the private investigation for defense attorney Stephen Murphy that helped set aside the high-profile murder conviction of a Sikh named Tejpal Singh, says Cpl. Saran came into his office last week offering to pay him out of his marine salary to find some justice for his wife and unborn child.
“I took the case, but I won’t take money from an active United States Marine,” says Dowd. “Especially one who lost his wife like that. After nosing around a little, I think this one just fell through the cracks. No one seems to care. Listen, I’m anything but a liberal, okay? I’d hate to think it starts with the color of the victim’s skin. But if the victim was a pregnant, pretty white girl, this case would be solved by now.”
In response to my inquiry, an NYPD spokeswoman would say only: “This is an active investigation, and the detectives from the 102nd Squad have been in touch with the husband.”
Dowd says he’ll probably go to Canada to question Persuad.
“Meanwhile, I told Aaron to have his USMC commanding officer write a letter to another proud United States Marine named Ray Kelly,” he says. “Maybe he’ll make someone pay attention to the murder of a beautiful young wife of an active Marine who was beaten and burned to death with a baby in her belly. Probably for $12,000.”
“Before I’m deployed overseas, I just wanted to know someone is seeking justice for Annie and my unborn baby at home,” says Cpl. Aaron Saran, USMC.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sad story, she was a princess. Hope the NYPD finally show them some respect and a job finding killer. RIP princess, hope your husband can handle this tragedy.
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