Was it suicide or was it something else? Victim experienced years of domestic abuse!

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he police said nothing via press release; neither via government nor the regular. Meanwhile the popular word was that there had been another suicide attempt on June 27 and died two days later. Meanwhile the official record declared the 44-year-old in question had committed suicide. According to the police the victim admitted consuming Touchdown—an agricultural herbicide.

According to her family, her only daughter had found her lying helpless at minutes to 7p.m. on June 27, but she was sufficiently conscious to say she had consumed the herbicide some five hours earlier. She was subsequently transported via ambulance to the hospital’s emergency room, where she remained until she died on 29 June. She left behind four children and her husband.

Mental illness or a hard-knock life, so many factors contribute to suicidal behaviour. However, one of the grossly under-reported triggers is domestic violence that sometimes leads to fatal consequences. At press time none of the related authorities could provide detailed information on local suicides, but according to a recent police briefing, 41% of homicides were related to domestic issues.

As for the incident of June 29, despite the police’s suicide ruling, the victim’s children believe their father might have something to do with it. So does the husband’s sister, whom we will call Kate for the purpose of this article. The victim’s daughter, although originally willing to speak to STAR about the terrifying experience, could not comply due to severe depression. However, Kate noted multiple discrepancies in her brother’s accounts of the incident in an exclusive interview with this reporter.

Although the victim’s husband claimed he had seen his wife on June 27, and reported to the police that she seemed fine, Kate offered a different story: “That Wednesday he told [the victim] to go to her family in Vieux Fort and ask them for $6,000 for him to buy a Noah. When she came back without the money he turned on her. He admitted that he slapped her. So something terrible had happened between them. But he told the police he had just had sex with his wife.” Kate claims that while the man’s daughter was searching anxiously for her mother for six hours on that Wednesday, he knew where she was and that she appeared to have taken something, he had waited hours before telling anyone.

Kate admitted she had not known until her death that the victim was being abused. “He is a drunkard,” she claimed. “His nickname is ‘Jeremy Street,’ because that’s where he would spend all his money.”  Kate is of the view that her brother’s children said that he had a cutlass and pinch bar. The money he worked for, family would never see. But he would always come home drunk and violent, threatening to slice their necks with the cutlass or kill them with the pinch bar. “They told me they used to have to hide it when they saw him coming drunk,” said Kate.

Kate informed that she had learned the deceased was not allowed to work, socialize or own a phone, that she lived in fear of her husband, all of which adds up to domestic abuse. During the deceased woman’s stay at the hospital her daughter  asked her who had taken her into the room where she was discovered half conscious.  “All she said was, ‘I don’t want no trouble.’ What dying person would say that to their daughter? It’s like she was scared that if she survived and said anything someone would kill her,” said Kate.

Kate said that the police never came to ask the dead woman’s relatives any questions immediately after she was hospitalized. Also, that the room where she was found was left uninvestigated by the police.  Kate said, “We did that on our own, trying to figure out who had bought the Touchdown. It was new and the children said they had never seen it before. There was no need for it.”

Kate went on: “I think the police should take some time before deciding someone has committed suicide. What is troubling me is not only that she died; it’s also that my brother may escape the consequences of his actions. I am also disappointed with the police. They just ruled it as a suicide and that ended everything.”

Additionally: “We did not see the police from the day of the incident and all weekend I was expecting to see something in the news but I didn’t. So I asked the children to meet me at CID on the Monday morning.”

Initially, when this reporter contacted the police they didn’t know off hand about the latest suicide. They said if the case was not reported there would be no investigation. But isn’t the hospital responsible for reporting unnatural deaths to the police? Later that day the police said that the matter was ruled as a suicide but could not confirm at press time whether the original report came from Victoria Hospital or when the family came to CID. If the family insists someone was responsible for the victim’s death, they should go to a lawyer, that’s what a family member claimed the police told her.

Kate’s brother is now “in Saint Marteen where supposedly he is looking for work. He told me he was going to disappear after the funeral and he has.”