– woman’s lips sealed with heavy-duty glue
The turbulent relationship of a West Coast Demerara (WCD) couple ended tragically yesterday when Alfred Etwaroo murdered his wife of 14 years then hanged himself in their home, which was also occupied by their three young children.
Kathleen Mo-A-Lin, 30, was found with a gaping wound at the back of her head and her lips sealed with some heavy-duty glue. She was discovered lying just under the hanging body of her 39-year-old husband in their partially completed home at Under-neeming, Parfait Harmonie, WCD.
Neighbours said the couple, who only recently moved in with their three children, hardly said anything to anyone except to extend the usual courtesies.
Relatives on the other hand, remember the two as having had issues almost from the day they were married.
Yesterday morning when Stabroek News arrived on the scene, residents pointed to the unfinished concrete house where the couple resided with their three children aged six, seven and 11 years old. They said the couple and children stayed to themselves and on many occasions they would see the children playing in the yard but they always remained there.
Many residents said they had heard of the tragedy only minutes before this newspaper arrived.
“People in here keep to themselves and they were newcomers so we people ain’t really know them very much,” one woman said.
Details as to exactly who made the discovery were sketchy but Etwaroo’s body, swinging from a beam in the roof, was visible from the road.
Stabroek News understands that the couple was heard arguing on Friday night and the discovery was made some time before 8 am yesterday. A newspaper vendor, who said he notified the police, said a friend of his who is a mason and was hired by Etwaroo to do some work on his house, had gone to make arrangements with the man and seen his swaying body hanging from the roof. The eastern windows of the house are incomplete and so allow for a clear view inside. The mason said he raised an alarm and the children were rescued from the house and taken to a neighbour’s house.
Two police officers — a female and a male in plain clothes — were on the scene when this newspaper arrived. About 45 minutes later, a number of other ranks in plain clothes arrived and went into the house. They later came out, but it was not until another half an hour that another set of ranks arrived, and then about half an hour after them the hearse arrived.
Altogether, the bodies of the two lay in the house for more than four hours after they were discovered, before they were removed.
A police officer who had just come from the house when this newspaper arrived said he suspected that both of them had consumed some poisonous substance. Accord-ing to him, Mo-A-Lin, who had suffered a deep wound to the back of her head, was discovered lying just below her husband’s hanging body.
As parlour attendants removed the bodies from the house, blood dripped from Mo-A-Lin’s head.
One of the woman’s relatives who saw the bodies prior to their removal said Mo-A-Lin’s lips had been sealed with some sort of heavy-duty glue.
The relative said the mouths of both the man and his wife appeared to be wet with the poisonous substance.
Problems for years
This couple’s relationship had seen years of abuse, threats and isolation from relatives. Relatives recounted that Etwaroo had been throwing accusations at his wife for many years, claiming she was cheating and meeting other men in his absence. Because he believed this, he kept her away from relatives and prevented her from going anywhere.
“If she left home fuh go buy boards or windows for the house was a big problem with him and her,” one of the woman’s sisters recounted.
The grieving sister then turned her rage on a police officer standing nearby demanding to know why the police refused to intervene in abusive relationships. She said her sister had gone to “the welfare” before for her abusive husband who had threatened on many occasions to end his own life and hers as well as their three children’s.
“I hope the police use this as an eye-opener and help women in this situation,” the sister raged. “Because everyday she went was today tomorrow, today tomorrow and now look wah happen. They must let relatives come and make report too… The police must listen sometimes.”
Crying, the woman said that relatives had told her sister many times to move back home since the threats from her husband were ever increasing. “Me tell she don’t move into the house, wait till it finish. But no, she said she was comfortable,” she added.
The woman’s parents reside overseas and were told of the incident by her sibling.