Although Christmas is a time of joy and spending quality time with loved ones, it has found Carlann Chester-Welch without her husband, her daughter without her father, and a family without justice.
Her husband, Franz Welch, an EU accountant, died last month in hospital, two weeks after he was struck down by two speeding motorcyclists, who are still to be found by police.
At Christmastime last year, her husband was the one who did all the cooking and they spent a very quiet day together with their then one-year-old daughter.
“This will be my first Christmas without him. I have a lot of down moments and I try to pick myself up because I have her and I try to stay perky and a smile on my face,” an emotional Chester-Welch told Stabroek News in a recent interview, adding that in the light of this tragedy there is no Christmas for her and her family. The couple spent 14 years as husband and wife.
She said that praying a lot has helped her on the worst days. “It was God’s will and He knows best. I trust a lot in the Lord,” she added. She said that while there will be no Christmas tree, lights or fancy foods, she and her daughter will be attending church today.
The grieving woman explained that her daughter does not fully understand that she will never see her father again. When the girl sees his photograph, she points at it and calls for daddy. She, however, has now stopped asking for him.
According to Chester-Welch, caring for a young child alone is very difficult because Welch was “always there to help me and she doesn’t have that father figure, something that is very important to me and him as well.” She noted that he was “a real father, he played an active role,” while adding that tears comes to her own eyes whenever she looks at the child, who is “the splitting image of her father.”
About the investigation, Chester-Welch said that six weeks have passed and she has only been able to get bits and pieces of information from the police. She said she recently made contact with a rank at the Kitty Police Station and was told that a man whose name was on the registration for the motorcycle was arrested but later released after his story that he was incarcerated at the time of the accident was verified.
She said that some time back, police had informed relatives that the man’s brother went to the police station claiming that the motorcycle had been sold and that his sibling was unavailable. The brother had apparently gone to the police, after ranks repeatedly visited the home, in search of the registered owner.
The policeman assured Chester-Welch that the accident is still being investigated and the search continues for the two persons who were riding the motorcycles on that day. She said that though it is evident that police are doing some work, she is still not satisfied. “I want to encourage, I want to continue to plead with the police for justice,” she said, while adding that police have only told them about one suspect and she questioned what is being done to find the new owner of the motorcycle and who was driving the second one. She said that when she visited the station, the motorcycles were still there and looked “brand new. I was surprised they had no damage and that was strange.”
Chester-Welch stressed that she will never be satisfied unless someone is charged and placed before the court. She also expressed the desire for the police public relations to be improved. She explained that when the brother of the registered owner went to the police station, a policeman called and informed them of this development. However, when the registered owner was apprehended nothing was said to any family member. “We have to be the ones calling all the time,” she noted.
On October 25, when the accident occurred, Chester-Welch was in Belize. She said that she was unable to see the statement her husband’s friend, who was with him at the time of the accident, gave to the police and because of his distressed state, he was unable to give her a lot of information.
When she arrived in Guyana and spoke with the friend, he told her that he and Welch were returning to the latter’s car, which was parked along the Rupert Craig Highway near the seawall, after viewing the Diwali Motorcade. The friend, she said recalled hearing a loud noise followed by screaming and when he looked back Welch was lying on the ground.
People, began crowding around and police arrived and took the unconscious man to the hospital. According to the woman, her husband was bleeding through his nose.
She said when she arrived in the country, the doctor never indicated to her that her husband’s chances at survival were slim. “Death was the last thing that we saw coming”, she said, explaining that at the time her husband was a patient of the High Dependency Unit (HDU). She said that the doctor told her that Welch has suffered a brain contusion and that he needed time to allow the swelling to reduce.
One week before he died, Welch, according to his wife, began experiencing respiratory distress and as a result was moved to the Intensive Care Unit, where he was placed on a life support machine. “At that stage the doctor did not say that things had worsened,” she said. “They said that his recovery would be very slow, like about six months or even longer and that he would suffer from problems with his vision and mood swings,” she added. The woman told this newspaper that she was prepared to handle the recovery process although she knew that it would not have been easy. Welch, however, never regained consciousness.
