Sometime after midnight the morning of Saturday October 27, 2012, fourteen-year-old Detaisha was awakened from her sleep at her home on George Street, Gros Islet. The wailing from her five-month-old baby sister was just too much so she jumped out of bed to check. She found baby Taisha alone in the room, crying helplessly. At that point Detaisha looked around the house frantically for her mother who was nowhere to be found. She decided to look outside in the yard and that’s when horror struck. Right outside the family home, she saw her mother Catherine “Luciana” Henville’s lifeless body slumped in a white plastic chair, a yellow nylon cord draped around her neck and tied to an outdoor umbrella.
Her emotions surged, she cried out for help, ran out to the road to look for her mother’s boyfriend. Instead she found his brother and another young man who came to her aid. The pair found the body and according to reports proceeded to cut the rope off before calling the police.
At about 2am Saturday morning, Marie Henville, Catherine’s mother picked up a call in Martinique where she has been for the last seven months. On the other end is Lelanda Henville, Catherine’s cousin.
“Aunty, aunty, pas sote’ (do not jump),” she said she heard from her niece.
“What is it?” she asks. “Something happened at home,” comes the reply. At that point the Marie related that it sounded like someone grabbed the phone from her niece and the new caller blurted; “Ou sav Luciana pan coy an kai la? (You know Luciana hang herself in the house).” Rhetorically the mother replied, “Luciana pan koy?” At that point cousin Lelanda took the phone and confirmed the news adding, that she could not get into the house since police were already on the scene and had cordoned off the area.
Still in shock Marie questioned, “Why did Luciana hang herself?” as her heart pounded in her chest uncontrollably. Another call came, this time from a young man in Gros Islet asking Marie Henville if she had heard the news.
“He told me he heard Luciana hang herself and I asked him for what? The young man replied; “for… name omitted). He have another woman, so they were fighting, they were quarrelling. Luciana hang herself for…” At that point the mother said she denied that her daughter would ever commit suicide.
“My daughter would never kill herself for no man,” Marie tells the STAR. “But my heart was beating; I got weak and drank some really cold water to cool me down.”
News reports on Saturday indicated that Catherine Henville had “apparently committed suicide.” However police here have since confirmed that she was strangled.
Later that Saturday morning Marie Henville left her home in Martinique perchance to travel to Saint Lucia by boat. Alas the boat was filled she was not able to get to St Lucia until Tuesday this week. Since her arrival she says she has tried on two occasions to reach the investigating officer in the matter to no avail. She went to Rambally’s Funeral Service where her daughter’s body is now stored to try to see the body but was unable to, since according to her the place was being fumigated.
Present at the autopsy of Catherine Henville this week was her cousin Lelanda Henville who recalls her last moments with Catherine. The pair last saw each other on Friday night.
“She was having a good time with her boyfriend… her eldest daughter was there too in Gros Islet at the Friday night street party by Nigel’s bar,” Lelanda retells. “I asked her where is my daughter, that’s how I call the baby, my daughter. She said “at her father of course” and I said okay and left them there and went to Rodney Bay.”
After leaving Gros Islet, then Rodney Bay Lelanda says she returned home after midnight and went to bed.
“I was sleeping and a neighbour came to call me, saying she heard Luciana hung herself and she asked me to come quick since there were people already outside the house. Lelanda too was in doubt about the possibility of her cousin committing suicide. She says she got dressed and ran out of her house only to find her cousin’s home surrounded by people. Try as she might Lelanda says police would not let her through. Feeling helpless and losing composure she gained support from someone as she cried irrepressibly knowing her cousin and baby cousin were inside and she was unable to see them.
“They later took the body away, gave me the key and when I entered the yard I saw all the blood on the chair,” she says.
Following the autopsy at which she was present Lelanda says it was confirmed that Catherine died of strangulation, which brought her some strange sense of relief, knowing her cousin did not commit suicide.
“The blood we were told was from her eyes, ears and nose and not a blow since she had no bruise marks. The doctor said she had no mark no bruise marks no nothing. It was just strangled she was strangled,” Lelanda told the STAR.
Catherine’s mother who had just sent her 400 Euro the Friday prior to her death describes her 31-year-old daughter as a quiet individual.
“My daughter is not someone who was loud. She had friends, was a loving person, outgoing, but not a troublemaker,” Marie says. She admitted her daughter had a few quarrels with her boyfriend but was the type of person to walk away from trouble, preferring to come home and sulk and cry.
Catherine lived in Gros Islet, went to school in Grande Riviere and later modeled with Joyce Mederick also taking part in a Miss Piton pageant here. As of late she was unemployed and gave birth to her second child in June.
When we spoke Friday morning her family said they had no suspicions as to what occurred or why she was killed on the eve of Jounen Kweyol.
“We are hearing rumours but so far we do not know,” Catherine Henville. “We will not rest until the person who did this to her is found and we are believing in God that this person will be found.”
One man was taken in for questioning in the matter
this week. However, there have been no arrests so far as the family waits patiently on an update from the police while making plans to bury their daughter. A candle burns next to the place where she may have last been alive, a solitary blood stained white chair, her eldest daughter still much to traumatized to come near.
