Ten months after Maria Ward’s throat was slashed by her reputed husband Christopher Haynes, she forgave him and took him into her Trinidad apartment where they were both found dead on Wednesday morning.
Trinidad police, according to a report in the Trinidad Express yesterday, suspect that both agreed to drink a poisonous substance, or one forced the other to do it before committing suicide.
Ward, 22, of 21 North Haslington, East Coast Demerara was the mother of a three-year-old daughter from a previous relationship and a two-year-old son fathered by Haynes.
Last April, Haynes, also called ‘Clint’ and ‘Mark Anthony,’ was detained after he slit Ward’s throat and then stabbed her three times. Ward, who was 21 years old at the time, had been with her reputed husband for almost two years.
After attacking her early on the morning of April 21 last year, in an empty lot next to his family’s Golden Grove home, Haynes had removed her bloodied clothing dressed her in some of his and taken her to the hospital in a taxi. “She said while in the car, he tell she not to tell people at the hospital is he do it but tell them how she get attack and she call he and he come and assist,” a relative had said.
However, Ward told the police at the hospital what had really happened and Haynes was arrested. She was hospitalised for a period of time and had sworn that she would take Haynes before the court to get justice.
Gladys Peters, the dead woman’s grandmother, told Stabroek News the matter was still in the court and police had issued several arrest warrants for Haynes last year.
After her granddaughter was discharged from the hospital last year, Peters said yesterday, Ward decided to move to Trinidad for her safety and to get a job. Ward left for Trinidad on July 7, 2009 and Haynes, according to her grandmother, followed her there in November.
“After he went there,” Peters said, “he ain’t had nowhere to stay and Maria felt sorry for him. She forgive him and let him move in with her. He been living with her since then.”
Ward, she said, would normally call home once a week. Peters spoke with her granddaughter on Sunday and as far as she knew there was no problem brewing between the couple.
“Is yesterday [Wednesday] one of Maria cousin that does live in Trinidad call and say that she got something to tell me… She ask me if I alright and so and then she tell me that Clint [Haynes] kill Maria and he self,” Peters related.
Their bodies were found by police who were called in by the landlord of a property at Light Pole 100, Main Road, Longdenville. Officers said they had to break open the door and found both dressed only in undergarments. There were no visible marks of violence or signs of forced entry to the apartment.
Peters is convinced that Ward was murdered by her reputed husband.
Haynes’ relatives, when contacted by this newspaper, refused to comment.
Fighting
Before Haynes slit her granddaughter’s throat last April, Peters said, the couple lived in the upper flat of her Haslington home.
“Dem was always fighting,” the woman recalled. “When dem go out to the dances you does hear dem til down the road when they coming home.
“Sometimes a neighbour would scream out to me that Clint [Haynes] beating Maria.”
The man, Peters said, was not much of a drinker nor, as far as she knew, was he an abuser of any substance.
During the time he lived with her granddaughter there were many occasions when he beat Ward.
“He would always apologise to we and her afterwards though,” Peters recalled, “and as far as I can remember Maria never report any of the beatings to the police until he stab she up last year.”
Ward, the woman said, grew up with her and she had always provided for her. When Ward first took the man home she introduced him as “a friend” and it was only after she became pregnant with their son that Haynes moved in with her.
“My granddaughter [Ward] never work until she go to Trinidad,” Peters said. “I always use to make sure she get everything.”
Peters said that her daughter, Ward’s mother, who died five years ago, was a police officer and was hardly ever around to take care of her children.
Peters will now have to care for Ward’s children.
“Well I got this lil shop here and I does get lil food out of it and it does bring in a dollar so I just going to have to make it do for all of us,” Peters stated.
