Nazalena Natasha Houston, the lone survivor of the brutal attack by her husband that left her two children dead, yesterday said police could have prevented the tragedy by acting on a report she made to them the day before.
In addition to her children, Houston, 21, lost her right hand and the fingers on her left hand after her husband, Richard Lord, launched the cutlass attack on her and their two children, five-year-old Kimberly Houston and two-year-old Ahmad Lord.
Speaking from her hospital bed yesterday, Houston said that she had gone to a probation officer in Pouderoyen the same day of the attack and that while heading home with the children, Lord forced her into a taxi. “He bullied me into the car and that’s how come I end up coming home with him. I wanted to run but I had them two children in my hand so I couldn’t run. I just end up coming home with him,” she said.
According to the woman, she had a strange feeling when she got into the car and when she reached home she shouted to her sister. “I shout to mi sister that mi come home fi meet mi death,” she said.
Houston noted that Lord would always tell her that he was going to kill her and their children. Whenever she asked him why he would kill the children, he said that he did not want another man taking care of his children.
Houston said that she decided to end their relationship and that while she was telling him, he was sharpening his cutlass. She did not take this gesture seriously since Lord was always in the habit of telling her that he would chop her.
Houston also said that it was only the Tuesday before the attack that she made a report at the Leonora Police Station and was told that she had to tell the officers the man’s whereabouts so that they could send a patrol to look for him. However, she felt that the attack could have been prevented had they taken her seriously. “When I went to the station, I talk to this policewoman and I was telling her about what was happening and she tell me that I need to tell them his whereabouts before they send a patrol to find him. If they had done something this whole thing could have been prevented,” she said.
Houston said that Lord was always in the habit of drinking and abusing her and accusing her of being unfaithful, although he was the one who was having affairs. “Up to the same day he asking me if is the boy I went by and I tell he no and he ask Kimberly and she told him no,” she said.
She could not remember how her children got chopped but after she was chopped on her right hand she saw her daughter running and the child hollering out was the last thing she heard before she fainted. After chopping them, her husband jumped the fence and fled the scene. He remains on the run.
