A 17-year-old girl was yesterday morning stabbed several times by her ex-boyfriend and is now in a critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The stabbing of Vanessa Atteca Collins was the culmination of several attempts on her life by a Haslington, East Coast Demerara (ECD) resident known as `Boysie’.
Reports are that Collins was just about to leave a ‘back to school’ party in Victoria, ECD, when she was attacked by the man who pursued her as she attempted to flee and stabbed her several times and left her lying in a trench. Stabroek News understands that the man, said to be a pork knocker, has since gone into hiding after informing his relatives of his actions.
Officials at the hospital said the young woman was in a critical condition and up to last night her breathing was being aided by an oxygen mask.
‘Hide me’
According to a friend of the young woman, who was with her at the time of the incident, they had attended the party in Victoria and were proceeding to another friend’s house in the village to sleep as it was too late to return to Anns Grove.
She said they stopped at the bus that took them to the party and were talking to some of the occupants when the young man attacked.
“All I hear she say is ‘hide me, hide me’ and I went and stand up in front she and he come and tell me to move from in front of he before I get trouble,” the young woman said. She said she refused to move and the young man grabbed her and pushed her out of his path by which time she saw him going to his waist.
“I thought was a gun he going for but I didn’t see he tek out anything and then he went and grab she and I thought is cuffing he cuffing she in she belly but I didn’t know is stab he stabbing she,” the young woman said. On realising that her friend was under a knife attack she said she told her to run.
“I tell she run Teca run and she start to run but he run behind she and deh two of them end up in a trench and he stab she some more. I run and tell some boys and they went to help and he run away and I catch a taxi and bring she to the hospital,” the friend said.
Three of Vanessa’s younger siblings yesterday told Stabroek News that it was not the first time the young man had attacked their sister. An older sister, Amanda, said while she has heard of the attacks she has never seen the young man.
According to a younger brother, one night the young man called his sister on the phone and told her to meet him at the corner to receive a mattress.
“But is kill he din wan kill she is nah no mattress he had,” the boy said. He said when his sister refused to leave the house the young man proceeded to their home and broke a window and climbed into the house.
“He come in and he had a long ice pick in he hand and me cousin went hay and she went and tell he ‘no man Boysie you can’t do me cousin dah’ but he push me cousin away and still went to me sister,” he said.
The young man then allegedly forced Vanessa out of the house even though she was half dressed. “He put deh ice pick to she neck and carry she away pun he bicycle … but he loose she and she come back home,” the boy said.
He also spoke of another time when his sister was snatched off the street in Anns Grove and taken away by the young man on his bicycle.
And while his cousin reported the incident when the young man broke into their home he said his sister never reported it.
‘No fixed place
of abode’
When Stabroek News visited the young woman’s mother at Anns Grove, ECD, the woman, Annette Sam, said that her daughter “had no fixed place of abode” as she had moved out from her home.
“You see when you don’t hear you does feel and dah is wah happen here,” the distressed woman said yesterday morning as she paced up and down in her yard.
“Right now I can’t go to the hospital, I can’t tek it right now because like me pressure high and me head ent deh on good on me body,” the woman lamented.
The woman, who said she had ten children but only eight are alive, said she worked hard to try to provide for her children but her efforts were never good enough for her daughter. The child’s father works in the interior and according to the mother he had spoken to her on several occasions but she was being influenced by others and did not take his advice.
“You see me I does kill cow and I does weed the streets, I does work hard and I provide food for my children, I give them good and I still use to work and give she two hundred dollars to go to school and a day she tell me dat money ent enough and I ask she wah she want me to do,” the woman said. She said her daughter later moved out of her home and she would hear about her from time to time as she kept moving from place to place.
“Is like wherever night catch she is deh where she sleep, she gat clothes all over and every tinning cup dat knock she deh. If this didn’t happen to she, she would be at Jamzone…”
The last time she saw her daughter was last week Thursday when she went to visit a relative from overseas “and ah ask she, girl is wah really you want in this life and she just look at me and smile and walk away.” Prior to last week Thursday she could not recall the last time she saw her daughter.
“I use to tell her ‘Girl dem lil boy on the road ent have nothing to give you’ but is like she always want something else and now look wah happen…”
Sam said if she sees the young man who stabbed her daughter she would not recognise him as she does not know him that well but she says she knows he would sometimes attack her daughter because she was told this by her other children.
“It is not two cent I went through with this child and I does work hard right now I can’t take it more,” the woman said. She said at one time she was so frustrated after her daughter got into a “police story” that she wanted to send her to the New Opportunity Corps but her siblings intervened and one of them signed for her at the station and promised to be her guardian.