Rape victim killed before she could testify

A 20-year-old woman is dead and her alleged killer is the same man awaiting trial for raping her two years ago.
The bloody body of Natasha Ramen, who was preparing to testify against Hemant K. Megnath, 29, of Brooklyn, as early as next month, was discovered by her landlord outside her Hollis apartment on Thursday, March 15. Her throat had allegedly been slashed from ear to ear.
“It was a very deep wound,” said Lt. Salvatore Salerno in published reports.
According to police, Megnath, who allegedly raped Ramen on May 22, 2005 when he lured her into his Bushwick home, was free on $10,000 bail at the time of the murder.
He had been arraigned on the rape charges in February of 2006 and released on bail a few weeks later.
But according to family members, in the past few months Megnath had been threatening Ramen with physical harm if she proceeded with her testimony.
At the time of her death, Ramen had an order of protection against Megnath.
In published reports, Ramen’s aunt, Salema DeLeon, 42, said, “He [Megnath] made threatening calls.
He text-messaged her, too. We reported it to the police. He told her that if she didn’t drop the charges, he was going to kill her and her husband.”
She continued, “Her husband got a text message the day she was murdered: ‘One gone, one more to go,'”
Megnath is currently being held pending arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on charges of first- and second-degree murder and fourth degree criminal possession of a weapon.
If convicted, he faces up to life without parole in prison.
“This is a terribly sad and tragic case - not only in terms of the victim’s violent death but also because of the degradation and humiliation that she had allegedly previously suffered at the hands of the defendant,” said District Attorney Richard A. Brown.