Handle of knife found by relatives
Relatives of Sharmin McKay, who died on Monday after being stabbed,
said the suspect boasted before the attack about how he could `get off for murder’ and questions are being raised about the quality of the police probe as the handle of the knife used was found during a clean-up of the house.
Relatives of the woman also believe medical personnel at the Georgetown Public Hospital should have paid more attention to her, especially since she was complaining constantly about being in pain.
McKay, 32, died at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) shortly after 4.30 pm on Monday. She had been repeatedly stabbed and battered last week Wednesday, by a man with whom she had shared a relationship for just over a year. Following the attack it was estimated that she might have lain bleeding in her Bare Root house for about two hours.
Recounting from her limited memory of the incident McKay had told Stabroek News on Friday that the man had also forced kerosene down her throat and attempted to set her afire.
The man turned himself into police on Thursday afternoon and was remanded to prison. He had appeared before the court on a charge of assaulting McKay causing her actual bodily harm last month. Stabroek News has since been informed by a police source that the man could face the capital offence instead of the attempted murder charge originally proposed.
Relatives have also said that they are not satisfied with the efforts made by doctors at GPH. McKay’s mother Eileen McKay believes “they could have done more” to save her daughter’s life. The woman said on Tuesday that she does not think her daughter was “well enough” to be transferred from the hospital’s High Dependency Unit (HDU) to the Female Surgical Ward.
“She was still complaining about severe pain,” Eileen said. “She keep complaining about a blazing pain in her stomach but they [medical staff] ain’t pay her no mind. My daughter was not well enough and I think they coulda do more to save her.”
Speaking from her HDU bed McKay had said she couldn’t remember what happened that Wednesday afternoon and the man gave no indication of having any intention of harming her. The last thing McKay had said she remembered was lying on her bed with the man some time before 3 pm that day. However, she reported remembering pain during flashes of memory.
“Call somebody to carry meh to the hospital,” McKay, had urged her neighbour’s teenage son sometime later that afternoon.
Michelle Europe, the teen’s mother, told Stabroek News on Tuesday afternoon she was not home when McKay called out for help. However, McKay got the attention of her daughter and told her to get an adult to take her to the hospital. Europe’s daughter got her teenage brother who then fetched a neighbour. Even then, Europe said, her friend was fighting to stay alive.
“Meh son said when he peep outside he didn’t recognize she [McKay]…that wasn’t de Aunty Sharmin he know,” Europe said. “When he finally recognize she he run for Miss Jean [Brijmohan] and is then everybody get to know that he [the attacker] stab she up.”
Jean Brijmohan, her eyes puffy and red from mourning the loss of her friend, said that Europe’s teenage son went to her “well after 5 o’clock” last Wednesday afternoon to say McKay wanted “somebody big” to take her to the hospital. Brijmohan immediately raised an alarm and the semi-conscious woman was rushed to the GPH.
“When I get to she house that afternoon,” Brijmohan recalled, “she was on she back step. She de covered in blood and coulda barely seh anything.”
By that time McKay’s assailant, neighbours reported, was “long gone” from the house. The man, they reported, took all of the deceased’s money. They all expressed shock and horror at the dreadful scene awaiting them in McKay’s bedroom that afternoon.
‘…no love in him’
“De mattress didn’t good fuh nothing,” one neighbour recalled. “It de soaked in she blood, de floor in de bedroom and de living room, de walls and all de full ah blood…is a wonder how she [McKay] manage fuh live til yesterday [Monday].”
Friends, neighbours and relatives also recalled smelling kerosene in McKay’s home. Her clothes, bed, furniture and even she, they said, had smelled strongly of the substance. Countless “struck” matchsticks were scattered on the bed and floor and bore witness to the fact that the man had attempted and failed to set McKay ablaze.
Kerosene scented clothes were still piled on McKay’s bed frame when Stabroek News visited the Bachelor’s Adventure Backlands (Bare Root) home. The handle of the knife, which had been lodged in McKay’s abdomen after the attack, was on her kitchen table on Tuesday. Her father, Edmond Booker, while holding the knife handle explained how they’d recovered it when they were cleaning the house. Why the police had not taken possession of the handle for the purpose of checking for fingerprints is unclear.
McKay had said that her father was in the yard when the man attacked her. However, a haggard looking Booker said he had left the house that afternoon and would have been at a neighbour’s house when his daughter was being attacked.
“Before I lef’ de house that afternoon I hear the two ah dem talking to each other in de bedroom,” Booker explained. “I lef’ and I walk out de yard…is only later I hear is wuh happen.”
Booker said he’d been living with his daughter for two months and didn’t really know her boyfriend well. However, he remembered that the Friday before the incident McKay had posted bail for the man in relation to the assault incident a month earlier.
Neighbours said that since the man was released from prison they didn’t see much of him. Europe, who lives one house away from McKay, said that the man was very abusive and continuously tried to isolate and control her friend.
“Meh lil son and she used to be close,” Europe said. “He de like he Aunty Sharmin but when that man [McKay’s attacker] was home nobody couldn’t go over there and see she. I remember one time me and he had a `lil quarreling over how he does treat she [McKay] and he curse me up nasty and threaten to blow me brains out.”
Europe said that McKay’s ex-boyfriend was known for his “bad ways” in the community and everyone was surprised when the woman posted his bail and allowed him back into her house.
“De children dem was afraid in him,” Europe said, “and he was terrible to nuff people. After he lash Sharmin with de cutlass last month is then you start hearing how he used to beat he child mother…that man I tell yo’ from everything we see and hear from he ain’t had no love in him.”
‘…like a son’
Eileen said that her daughter never complained much about how her ex-boyfriend treated her. After the incident last month, she explained, the man had visited her.
“He come by me and talk to me nice and he start telling me how he slap she, but he never tell me how is lash he lash she with a cutlass,” Eileen said. “Then he start telling me how [one of his relatives] get off for murder and he could do the same thing.”
McKay’s mother said she was alarmed by the man’s statement and immediately asked if he was implying that he would kill her daughter. Eileen dismissed the man’s words thinking that he was drunk.
“I always listen to he,” Eileen said. “He always showed me a nice face… I didn’t treat he like a son-in-law, I de hold he like a son.”
However, the man that Eileen treated like a son made her daughter’s life a living hell, other relatives, friends and neighbours said. The man never allowed McKay to receive phone calls from anyone.
“Any time anybody call,” a friend said, “he would always answer de phone and start cussing up and he used to run through she phone and if he see ah strange number he used to call de person back and tell dem all kinda thing.”
McKay, they said, had indicated that she was trying to let go of the abusive man. They believe that it was McKay’s quiet, loving nature that allowed her to comfort him and in so doing she only shortened her life.
“He de know wuh kinda person she was,” Europe said. “He de know how loving she was and he take advantage of she… look wuh she get for comforting he, she find she death.”