Neighbors testify they did not see Lamha in murdered nurse’s building

State witnesses were unable to place Haleemath Lamha Abdul Rahman, 24, who has been charged as an accomplice in the murder of Filipino nurse Mary Grace Oned Pineda - with whose husband she had been having an affair with – in Mary’s home the time of her murder.

Mary was killed in her apartment on the first floor of Ma. Udhuheykokaage in Male’ City in the afternoon of October 19, 2021.

Her husband, Marvin S. Y. Vargas, 30, has been charged with murder with intent.

Lamha, in addition to being charged as an accomplice to murder with intent, has also been charged for unauthorized possession of injections.

All three had worked as nurses at IGMH’s ER.

Marvin had taken Mary’s body to IGMH in an ambulance mere minutes after she had gone to home for her break from work. He initially claimed her death as a suicide by hanging, and later changed his story and said she had suddenly collapsed.

Police found the death suspicious and opened an investigation.

Marvin was arrested on October 27, 2021. And Lamha was arrested on December 16, 2021.

An autopsy on Mary showed she died from injuries to her neck and head. Examiners also found traces succinylcholine - a medication used to cause short-term paralysis as part of general anesthesia - in her blood.

Investigators found a used succinylcholine injection, along with two other restricted injections from Lamha’s apartment.

At a Criminal Court hearing Tuesday, the state produced four people who lived in Mary and Marvin’s building as witnesses. All four had moved in and out of the building around the time of Mary’s murder.

The six-floor building does not have an elevator. Mary and Marvin lived on a first-floor apartment with their daughter, opening the possibility Lamha could have been seen by one of their neighbors around the time of her murder.

The state asserts Lamha went to the apartment before Mary was killed and taken to the hospital – something Lamha denies. Lamha said she took their daughter there, but never climbed up to their apartment.

None of the state’s witnesses who testified Tuesday were able to place Lamha in the building around the time of the murder. The witnesses testified they did not see anyone who resembled Lamha from the staircase on the afternoon of October 19, 2021, and some said they did not remember seeing anyone.