Sharon Howell, the mother of 10 who was stabbed and hammered mercilessly by her partner on Sunday, had been constantly threatened and relatives believe that plans she was making to return home to Barbados may have motivated the attack.
Howell, 38, of Freeman Street, East La Penitence, was stabbed by Aubrey Peters multiple times about the body, including to her shoulder, neck, stomach and head. Peters also hammered her about her head using the claw of the hammer. Despite the severity of her injuries, the wounded woman, who was admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital in critical condition, is no longer on life support and her relatives are optimistic about her recovery.
Peters, who had been in a relationship with the woman for almost two years and who is the father of the woman’s youngest child—a one-year-old girl—was believed to have later ingested a poisonous substance at his sister’s home at Diamond on the East Bank Demerara and he was also at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Howell’s brother, Wickliffe Halley told Stabroek News last evening that she was planning to return to her life in Barbados with her husband and he suggested that this was the reason behind the attack on her. “She sit down with me and him and told me that she want to go back to Barbados and she want me to come over and check on the children and I said no problem… He agree to all of what was said,” Halley explained.
He said that on Saturday evening, he was told the man became aggravated at the thought of Howell leaving him and started to argue with her since then.
“I was made to understand that he was stressing about her going away and leave him. She used to live there. Her husband is in Barbados and he even call the man up and the man said you have to remember that is my wife and no matter what she do, you got to remember that is my wife and she has to come home,” Halley stated.
He noted that he has since been informed that Peters had threatened to kill Howell’s children if she decided to leave him and return to Barbados but this too she did not confide in relatives. “She never tell we nothing. Till the last moment, now the children talking and we finding out what going on. The children say she used to tell them when the two of them get their problem don’t let them get involve,” he related.
‘Blame’
Halley in part blamed his sister for her current condition, explaining that it was not the first violent confrontation she had with Peters and that she had once even pleaded his case in front of the police.
“I blame my sister too, although she lay down there; I blame she because if a man go to stick a knife in your neck and you bar it and it burst away your whole hand and the matter end up in the police hand, why should you go and beg for him? All charges were dropped against him. The police only warn him. But if she de carry through with it, then she won’t go through this,” he said.
The man told this newspaper that his sister waited tables at a newly open bar on D’Urban Street, in the city, and it was a usual habit for Peters to go to the bar and “watchman” her. “He used to want know who she talk to, who she deal with and all kind of things. I won’t call that mad. I won’t even call that love because if she going to make a dollar when the day come, he should too. If somebody ain’t come and say well I get this for you build, he don’t come out and look for work, is my sister does find work for him,” he said, while noting that Peters worked as a contractor.
The man said the woman’s 10-year-old daughter has since told him what happened after witnessing the attack on her mother firsthand. “My niece tell me—that same one he lash with the hammer on her mouth—the 10-year-old one tell me that she stand up there and watch he when he tek the hammer and lash mommy in she head and the claw part go in and he pull it out and he lash she again. That is what my little niece tell me. She stand up and witness it,” the man said.
‘He couldn’t love she’
Halley related that the attack has been the cruellest act he had ever seen so far. “When I see my sister head at the hospital, I want know if he love she so much, how he beat she so? Plus, when he done hammer off the head, he still stab she in the mouth and cut she belly to and people tell me I must get sympathy,” the man said shaking his head.
He added that he wants his sister to get justice because she did not deserve what happened to her. “That is murder. He got to get charge for murder. Attempt is just like you do the act and he got to face one for himself and one for my sister. In this country, they don’t hang nobody, the most we can do is ask that they give he a long prison sentence. He got to spend time,” he affirmed. “If you love something you does care it, you don’t damage it… he couldn’t love she. The woman who got a baby for you; you can’t love she and stab she and beat she up so,” he said.
Meanwhile, Halley said he is hoping for his sister’s speedy recovery, noting that he has so far seen some progress in her condition. He explained that she is no longer hooked to a life support machine and that although she is unable to speak, she is managing to open her eyes and respond with movement in her arms and legs.
He pointed out that family and friends, with the exception of her children, parents and husband, are not allowed to visit Howell, who is lying naked under bed sheets. Doctors have advised her family that she can easily contract an infection.
Peters, meanwhile, is reportedly recovering well and even managed to confidently shake Howell’s relatives off during a visit on Sunday evening. Halley said he was told the man drank a dose of Gramoxone but speculated that he only sipped it.
“He ain’t drink it, he ain’t drink that thing. That thing is cut up your inside. I see he lie down on that bed and all he was doing was frothing… and had the nerve to shake we off,” Halley said disgustedly.
