-suspect on the run
Another woman is dead after her former reputed husband allegedly slit her throat with a kitchen knife just after midnight yesterday at Ithaca, West Coast Berbice before turning it on her daughter and a niece and then escaping.
Dead is Gertrude Edwards, 31; while her 13-year-old daughter Kerry Edwards and 16-year-old niece Samantha Charles are nursing wounds to their throats at the New Amsterdam hospital. Kerry is said to be in a serious condition while Samantha is listed as critical. Up to press time, their alleged attacker, Gladstone ‘Addy’ Williamson, a sugar worker, was still on the run.
Mortally wounded, with blood gushing from the gaping wound to her neck, Edwards ran out of her one-bedroom apartment and into a neighbour’s yard obliquely opposite where she collapsed and died.
Undertakers from the Anthony’s Funeral Establishment removed her body and took it to the New Amsterdam hospital mortuary around 2 am.
When this newspaper visited the scene yesterday morning, a mat was rolled up in the middle of the apartment and bloodstains were on the bed where the children had been sleeping and on the floor.
Trails of blood were also evident in the yard, in front of the gate next door, which she had been using to access her home and along the road to the neighbour’s yard obliquely opposite.
Backup ranks from the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department in Georgetown along with a tracker dog arrived at the scene around 10.50 am yesterday and combed the area for the man.
The dog led the officers into a yard at the back of the house where the suspect apparently escaped through after jumping the fence, then to a bushy trail in the backlands. However their efforts to capture the suspect were unsuccessful.
Edwards, a vendor at the New Amsterdam stelling had moved out of from her Angoy’s Avenue, home last October, reportedly to escape abuse at the hands
of her reputed husband. She was last seen at an Indian Arrival Day
celebration at the Blairmont Centre Ground on Thursday night.
She was occupying the apartment at Ithaca with Kerry and Samantha as
well as two smaller children she had borne for Williamson. Six-year-old Gladstone Jnr and five-year-old Althea Williamson were unharmed.
Reports are that Edwards was walking around the Blairmont Ground selling chips while her former partner of Angoy’s Avenue was also there selling drinks, separately. A woman told this newspaper that Edwards, who appeared to be in her usual jolly mood, left to go home when the show ended after 11 pm.
There are reports that the woman entered the home with the suspect, and after some time they started arguing.
Sources said he then whipped out what looked like a kitchen knife – that was later recovered at the scene close to the fence – and slashed her throat. She fled and Williamson then turned the knife on her niece and her daughter from another union.
Sources said that it was “unimaginable” that with the extent of the wound, the woman managed flee and climb a flight of stairs to reach the neighbour’s landing.
Oluremi Anthony told this newspaper that around 12:15 am she was jerked out of her sleep by loud pounding on her door. She said her husband peered through the window and saw the blood-soaked woman on the landing clutching her throat.
They then put on the lights in the house and opened the door. Unable to speak, Edwards pointed in the direction of her home and removed her hand briefly to show the gaping wound. She motioned that she wanted some water which Anthony gave to her.
According to Anthony, after Edwards drank the water she lay flat on the landing, her neck leaning on one side and “fluttered” a little then apparently took her last breath. Her blood also seeped under the door into Anthony’s house.
Meanwhile, Anthony said, her terrified children were in the bedroom screaming, thinking that the loud pounding was coming from bandits.
Anthony assured them that everything was alright but told them to
remain in their room.
She said that on seeing the woman’s condition she telephoned the Blairmont and Fort Wellington police stations and they responded promptly while her husband called out the neighbours for assistance.
As all of this was happening, Edwards’ son and Samantha had run over to a
relative’s home to inform her of the ordeal.
Anthony, who runs a supermarket below her home, said Edwards and her
children would leave home around 6 am to go to New Amsterdam to sell and
attend school respectively. She would not see them until they returned in the afternoon.
Another neighbour described the dead woman as being very friendly and
said she would see her with her children at church on Saturdays.
A resident of Angoy’s Avenue who lived near Williamson and Edwards when they were a couple told this newspaper that Williamson had been in the habit of abusing the woman. He said that a few months ago “he [Williamson] was beating her as if he was beating cow and I went and save her.”
Edwards is the latest in a growing list of women who have been killed or maimed recently.
On May 2, the body of 20-year-old Naiomi Singh of Morashee, East Bank Essequibo was discovered in a in a drain at the back of her residence with her throat slit. Rudolph Williams, a labourer who had worked for her father has since been charged with her murder.
On April 23, 22-year-old Yolanda Brummell of Lot 1210 ‘B’ Field Sophia was rushed to the Georgetown hospital at approximately 4.15 am, bleeding profusely from a wound to her abdomen. She had been attacked by her reputed husband who then escaped.
On April 20, Maria Ward, 21, of North Haslington, East Coast Demerara, was admitted to the Georgetown hospital with a slash to her throat and three stab wounds to her body, including one to her left temple. She had been attacked by the father of her son who accused her of being unfaithful.
On March 31, 39-year-old Pamela Mangru was stabbed her three times in the throat and slashed about her body. She subsequently bled to death. Her alleged attacker and reputed husband Devon Limerick has since been charged with her murder.
On March 12 , Savitrie Arjune of Lot 382 Herstelling, East Bank Demerara, a mother of two and an employee of Roti Plus was stabbed to death by her former reputed husband. He escaped and is still to be apprehended.
In February, 38-year-old Deborah Allen of Port Kaituma, North West District, was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital after being chopped by her reputed husband.
Her teenaged daughter was chopped across the face and spent several days in the Georgetown Hospital.
The two had an argument over a party they had gone to shortly before the incident.
The attacker subsequently turned himself over to the police.
That same day, two women, Nekecia Rouse, 25, and her sister-in-law, 18-year-old Alexis ‘Keisha’ George were slashed to death in New Amsterdam. Their attacker is still being sought.
