Pensioner Sugrim Gangabissoon, the man badly beaten by thieves who broke into his home and killed his wife in April, may never regain full memory of the attack.

But he remembers that he was too feeble to reach out and help his wife, 78-year-old Indra Gangabissoon.

The elderly woman died at the Port of Spain General Hospital, two days after she was severely beaten by thieves who broke into her home in Carapichaima.

She suffered a fractured skull, broken jaw, and her eyes were swollen shut.

Her husband was treated for a blow to the head.

The incident occurred shortly after the couple returned home from cashing their pension cheques. Indra Gangabissoon's $3,000 pension money was stolen from her purse. Her husband's money was still in his pants pocket.

The couple, attacked on the day of their 59th wedding anniversary, was found unconscious and bleeding by their daughter Tara Mahase.

His daughter, Surujnie Teelucksingh, said yesterday, "He has not been himself since the incident. He can't remember everything that happened. But when we talk to him about it, he keeps saying that he feels guilty. He says he feels guilty hat he couldn't do anything to save my mother. But we try to tell him that he too was helpless, because he got a blow to his head."

Gangabissoon turns 93 in July.

Teelucksingh, who has been staying with her father in recent weeks, said the elderly man would sit on the back steps each morning, as he did when her mother was alive.

"Every morning he would go sit on the step to watch my mother water the plants. He can't stop doing that. He would look at her framed photo in the living-room. My sisters and I have to be around all the time because we can't leave him alone. I have been here since my sister left to return abroad two weeks ago. She came for Father's Day," Teelucksingh said.

She said her father is not allowed to leave the house alone.

"And he would complain that he is a prisoner. But other times he would ask why we not locking the doors and windows. We take him for walks and drives, but we try not to leave him alone," she said.

Teelucksingh said the police have not contacted her family in a month.

"So we don't know what is happening with the investigations. But I am praying that we get some kind of justice for my mother's death," she said.

No one has been arrested in the beating death of the woman.

But investigators yesterday assured her relatives that the case was not closed.

A senior investigator, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, "I cannot divulge the status of the case right now, but we are pursuing several leads. We are still working on the case, it is not closed," he said.