McDonald, 44, known as Zeeta, along with her mother, Sheila Govia, 75, were badly chopped about their bodies by McDonald’s irate husband Leroy Joseph at the Lot 428 Victoria, East Coast Demerara home they shared. In the November 10 attack, McDonald’s right thumb was chopped off and she also sustained chops to her back, both hands and about the body, while her mother was chopped to the face, hands, and feet and about the body.
Still, McDonald chooses to look on the bright side of life, especially after surviving the attack. “I’m thankful for life till God ready for me,” she told Stabroek News.
McDonald met Joseph six years ago. By then, she had lost one of her legs to diabetes. The man was in the army at the time. “He was very, very nice to me,” she recalled. He would cook and help her out in the house, she said. However, by last year Joseph began verbally abusing her. “He start cussing me up bout how I aint get foot. Me’s a nobody. What he nah remember he forget,” she explained.
McDonald, who lived in Victoria all her life, said before losing her leg she owned a variety shop on the public road. Afterward, she gave it up and Joseph eventually became the bread winner of the home after he moved in. When the verbal attacks started, McDonald said Joseph would go out in the community, making inquires about how many partners she had before him and come home and levy accusations against her.
The verbal abuse climaxed with an assault. “On Sunday he beat me up,” she said, adding that it was the first time he hit her. He had been on a three-week drinking binge. “He cuff me up and tell me, me nah get foot me nah good,” Zeeta recalled. She said that he even threatened to leave her and go back to his home in Belladrum, Berbice. Zeeta said that he told her this after throwing away her medications.
He left after that and she called the Cove and John Police Station to make a report. They promised to send someone over, “I aint see nobody,” she said, shaking her head.
The man returned home the next day. “On Tuesday, we on the bed and my mother was sitting at the foot.” The bedroom of McDonald’s modest wooden two room house is the first room you enter when you climb the stairs. Her mother’s house is directly in front of hers. “He was on the bed with he boots. I turn to he and tell he ‘Ow Uncle Joe you walking all over with the boots and now you come lying down on the bed, come leh I tek it off,’” she said.
McDonald explained that a cutlass was at the foot of the bed and before she could take off his shoes he reached for the cutlass and began to chop her. “He start firing chops. I block with my hands and as I hustle to come off the bed he chop me on me bamsie,” she recalled. She then hustled to go down the stairs. She added, “He come round the bed and fire a next chop and I bar with my left hand. I hustle to go down the step and throw myself down the side and crawl and go under the house.”
McDonald said her mother was still in the house as she tried to crawl away. Her mother was trying to keep him from going to her. That is when he dealt her chops as well. “He come down later with the cutlass and ask if I want he kill me,” the woman said, adding that she begged for her life at this point.
After the assault, the man walked out the yard and down the road with a bloody cutlass, telling people of what he had done.
Leroy Joseph was taken into custody at the Cove and John Police Station after the incident. He has been charged for the chopping and was subsequently remanded to prison. “I need justice,” McDonald said, “He know that is me and he alone and he do things to me and he know that my hands are my hand and foot, I need justice.”
Witnessing the attack was McDonald’s five year old niece and nephew. The nephew said, “Uncle Joe frighten me and me cry and cry.” The niece, McDonald noted, remains scared and she refuses to step foot in the room even now.
McDonald spent nearly two weeks in the Georgetown Public Hospital. She is now at home and laments the fact that she cannot do anything for herself. The attack has not, however, dampened McDonald’s spirit because she is hoping for the day she can help herself again. She said, “Right now I gon turn to God and nah look to no other person.”
She doesn’t like that her family has to look after her nor the fact that she cannot help herself. She said that her only child, a daughter named Odessa, lives in Haslington. Her shop, she added, was sold a long time back and her family takes care of her. “Tell you the truth life is nice and I thankful for life,” McDonald said.
