According to reports, around 1:30 am yesterday, security guard Sharon Howell and her partner, Aubrey Peters arrived home after the woman had finished her shift at a D’Urban Street bar in the city and the two were heard arguing loudly. Sometime later the man launched an attack on the woman.
Howell was stabbed multiple times about the body, including to her shoulder, neck and head while the man also hammered her about her head using the claw of the hammer.
Peters, who has been in a relationship with the woman for over a year and who is the father of the woman’s youngest child; a one-year-old girl, later ingested a poisonous substance at his sister’s home at Diamond on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD) and he, too, was subsequently hospitalised at the GPH.
The woman’s daughter, Tammica James told Stabroek News at the family’s home at Lot 81, Freeman Street, East La Penitence that her mother and her stepfather arrived home arguing loudly early yesterday morning. She said that within minutes of their arrival she heard a loud banging sound while her mother started to scream.
“I was watching TV when I hear them arguing so I tell them children ya’ll stay upstairs and I gon mek some tea for ya’ll”, James noted.
The young woman related that soon after she heard her mother cry out in pain as the man stabbed her about her body and according to her, her little sister ran down the stairs to see what the commotion was about and she too was hit on her mouth by the man with the hammer.
Relatives reported that the stepfather was seen lunging at the woman several times with the hammer and he repeatedly hit her in her head with the instrument.
According to James, her older brother who was by this time awakened by the incident ran to the woman’s assistance as the man stabbed her but he retreated after the man turned his attention on him. She said that neighbours then ran to their assistance during which the assailant stormed out of the house and told persons at the corner that he had just killed his common-law wife. The injured woman was then rushed to the GPH with blood streaming from her body. She was immediately attended to by doctors sometime around 2 am yesterday.
When this newspaper visited the family’s home yesterday, Howell’s children and other relatives wore concerned looks on their faces. Her daughter, who was struck on her mouth by the man with the hammer, cried silently as James pointed to the blood-stained tool which was on the floor close to a blood-soaked sofa in the family’s living room. It is unclear why the hammer had not yet been collected by the police.
Several pieces of clothing were neatly packed in a corner of the room and according to James, the assailant was packing his clothes prior to the attack.
She said he had told her mother that he was moving out of the house.
According to the woman’s daughter, her mother and the man struck up a relationship a little over a year ago but she noted that, ”he always got a problem with how she dress or the friends she got because mommy got a lot of male friends and he don’t like that”.
She said that the man would become jealous whenever her mother interacted with men and on many occasions he would embarrass her in public.
She related that several months ago the man had beaten her mother about her body at their home and during the incident she sustained a stab wound to her hand. She said that the police warned the man not to hit the woman but the situation continued.
This most recent incident of violence against women comes on the heels of another in which a miner brutally hacked to death another man whom he found in a compromising position with his 16-year-old partner at a mining area at Big Creek backdam aback Port Kaituma in Region One.
The young woman, who hails from Matthew’s Ridge in the North West District, was chopped about her body by her partner and her condition remained serious at the GPH yesterday.
Domestic violence has been a major problem in recent years and the government and the police have been criticized for not doing enough to address it.
