‘He tell me if I ain’t dead and he get arrest, when he come out he go’ kill me…’
By Oluatoyin Alleyne
Still recovering from a near fatal attack in which she was stabbed twice by her ex-boyfriend, Vanessa Sam knows that an arrest might be the only thing between her and the grave.
“I hope dem don’t loose he when he get arrest because he tell me if I ent dead and he get arrest when he come out he guh kill me and I tell deh police everything,” Sam, 19, told Stabroek News on Wednesday, saying that she hopes that her attacker is arrested and locked away for a long time.
The man has been in hiding for the two week period since he used an ice-pick to stab the young woman as she was leaving a “Back-to-school” party in Victoria village, on the East Coast of Demerara. Her mother had identified her as `Vanessa Collins’ and gave her age as 17 -details that Sam corrected.
Sam has difficulty sitting up and walking because of the stab wounds. She was hospitalised in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for three days after the attack, in which she sustained two stab wounds; at her side and in the vicinity of her navel. She revealed that she was a few weeks pregnant for her current boyfriend at the time of the attack and she doesn’t know if she has lost the child.
According to her, for the months she and her ex-boyfriend shared a relationship, she suffered abuse at his hands and it continued even after she decided to end the union. “He use to beat me steady. And if I talk to somebody and he hear he use to beat me…” she related. Sam said she started a relationship with the young man July last year, living with him “off and on” at his Haslington, East Coast home. It was hell for her, she explained, saying it was a beating and embarrassment more often than not. She added, “It wasn’t easy and he family and all tell me fuh lef he because of how he use to treat me….”
Sam left him earlier this year and began a relationship with someone else. “He went and start a relationship with one a me friend and so I lef he,” she explained. However, the constant abuse continued, culminating with last month’s stabbing. She recounted an incident while she was staying at her mother’s Anns Grove home and the young man forcibly gained entry and forced her out of the house while armed with an ice pick. She was only dressed in underwear and the young man forced her onto his cycle and started to ride. He later dropped her off and sped away.
In another incident, he attacked both Sam and one of her friends. “I went to a dance and was following a friend to catch bus and he come with a bicycle and he stab me friend, stab me at deh back of me foot and den put me on he bicycle and ride away with me,” she recalled. Her friend alerted the police and her relatives. Eventually, the young man abandoned the cycle and forced Sam to walk along the lonely railway embankment, all the way from Ann’s Grove to Haslington. She was later locked in a house and threatened not to make sound or she would be killed. “But he went out and I hear he uncle passing-because is two house in deh yard-and I call out to he and he say ‘wah you doing here you and dis boy ent done’ and I tell he how he force me to come,” Sam related. She said the uncle then berated him and took her to the road to get a bus home.
‘I guh feel fo she’
Sam recalled the hours before she was stabbed. She was at the East Coast car park in the city with friends. “We catch a bus and we been going to Anns Grove but when we reach Victoria, dem boys tell me and me friends that a dance was in Victoria and we should check it out.” While on the way to the dance, Sam said she saw her ex-boyfriend, who asked her for her friend with whom he had started a relationship. She told him she knew nothing of the woman’s whereabouts. “He tell me how if I ent know where she deh I go feel fuh she, but I just walk away,” she said.
Later, when she was leaving the dance the young man approached her again and she asked a friend to hide her. Her ex-boyfriend pushed the friend out of the way and drew a knife. “Dem boys went deh but dem thought is a gun he pull but then he stab me and I go down to the ground and blood start coming out me belly and I tell dem boys that is a knife he gat and I run away in a yard. He come behind me and stab me again and tell me if I go to deh police and he get lock up I better dead because when he come out he guh kill me and den he run away,” Sam said. She was rushed to the Georgetown hospital and later lost consciousness.
Sam had moved out of her mother’s house at the time of the attack. Her mother had told Stabroek News that she could not control her daughter, whom she said had been moving from one relative to another. According to Sam, she spent most of her time at a relative in Mahaicony when she left her mother and she also lived at a cousin in Anns Grove. She added that some relatives had told her not to return to her mother’s house but she kept in touch by phone from time to time. She explained: “I don’t know why dem tell me dat but I move out because me an me stepfather didn’t get along. One day he deh good and the next day he cussing me and telling me to move out and me mother use to tell me not to move but he tell me how me ent spending another night in deh house.”
Sam worked with a Bourda Market vendor before the incident but now plans to apply for a “road safety job” when she gets well, she said, explaining, “dem police use to train we when we went in school.” She also plans to attend private Information Technology classes and hopes to write the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) privately. “I really don’t plan to change nothing about me life. The only thing: I not going to anymore is dance. If they have a show or something, I will go to that but not to no dance,” she said, when asked whether she had plans to change her lifestyle.