Spots of blood still stain the Diamond, East Bank Deme-rara home where seventeen-year-old Angela McAllister was slaughtered last Thursday with a cutlass and spade by her boyfriend.
Sandra Alleyne tells the chilling story of watching her son Joshua Alleyne, 18, batter the teenager with a spade before chopping her to death in the yard. Sitting next to Sandra, her 13-year-old daughter chimes in that she held on to Angela’s hair and tried to pull her out of the house but her brother was also pulling the young woman’s hair as he beat her with the spade. In the end, she gave up and ran and told her mother to run along with her brother- who has a broken leg -because “Joshua woulda kill we too.”
They blame neighbours for not coming to help Angela as Sandra, 53, said she stood in the middle of the road hollering for help. There was still evidence of Angela’s blood in the yard and they spoke of how her blood was spilled in the kitchen-they found splatters in a pot of food that was on the stove-and of how a bloodied handprint was left at the back door.
“Joshua cruel boy, he chop the girl behind she neck and bust she vein and dah is how she bleed so much and dead,” said the young man’s sister.
In an interview with Stabroek News yesterday, Sandra was at pains to explain why she ran and left her son to kill someone’s daughter. She wanted to ensure that her two children got to safety, she said. “And leff he lash me too in me head, kill me?” she questioned when asked why she did not stay and attempt to save Angela. She was afraid of her son who would curse her “most mercilessly and threaten to burn down my house two times,” the woman said.
“Is my son, yea I know but Joshua does smoke, he does cuss me up, you know how much time I report he at the station. Dem police know me at the station…” she said as tears flowed down her cheeks. Sandra denied earlier reports that she had called Angela to the house to see her son and her daughter said too that she had no contact with Angela and, as such, coul
d not have told her Joshua was sick. They said that the murder was a premeditated act and Joshua even attempted to get them out of the house before the teenager visited.
The young man had recently returned from the interior where he had spent three weeks and had told his mother he was sick resulting in her taking him to the hospital where he received medication even though the doctor could not say what was wrong with him. But what worried Sandra was the fact that her son would walk “up and down the house like he mad.”
“He would walk up and down, not saying nothing and I would ask he wah happen but he not saying and I been frighten yeah but is me son and I would cry and beg he fuh talk to me,” she said. Joshua spoke to her Wednesday night and claimed that Angela was unfaithful to him and threatened to take her life but Sandra said she begged him not to do it and to allow the girl to live her life.
Thursday morning Joshua packed his clothes and said he was going to live on the pavement and despite his mother’s attempts to stop him, he left the home.
Sandra left shortly after to search for him. The teen later called his young sister and told her he was in Georgetown but when they arrived at the spot he indicated, he was not in sight. He called again and gave her another location but he was not there as well and after hours of searching, Sandra and her daughter decided to return home and Joshua was there.
“He premeditate and he just been want to get we out the house. When I come home he was here and we didn’t know this girl coming. Me daughter left and went and sleep and I went sitting right there [pointing to a chair] drinking some tea when Angela walk in and say ‘good afternoon’. I didn’t even hear a car stop,” she said.
Sandra said her son greeted the young woman who sat down and asked her how she was. The woman said she decided to do some laundry “because I don’t like get in young people story and so I leaving them to talk.”
“He lef and go outside and I bend me head going through deh clothes and is raise I raise my head and see he coming with a spade and I telling she easy ‘Angela, run, run’ but like she not hearing me and she asking ‘Wha, wha?’ and he come and start to lash she,” the woman recounted.
Sandra said she attempted to stop her son but he continued to beat the young woman and her daughter woke up and tried to help but “he been too strong fuh we. My other son been sleeping and he wake up and come out and he been going to help but I tell he run because he foot done break.”
Even as Sandra and her two children fled out the front door, Joshua followed Angela as she attempted to flee through the back door. It was in the kitchen where he reportedly got a cutlass and started to chop the teen but she ran all the way to the front of the yard where she fell and he continued to brutally chop her until she died.
He then walked out to the road and waited for the police to arrest him.
Since the incident, Sandra has not slept in her house because she is afraid of Angela’s family who she said visited the home for her. She does not understand why they blame her for the teenager’s death.
Acknowledging that she ran with her children to safety while her son brutally took the life of another woman’s child, Sandra said if she had not done that then she would have been a dead woman. “You want he kill me?” she cried as her daughter asked who would have looked after her and their house if her mother was killed. “I couldn’t save Angela,” Sandra maintained. “Joshua premeditate to do it and I had to run to save myself.”
She would not allow Joshua to get away with murder, Sandra said, and would ensure she tells the court what he did to ensure he faces the consequences. “You could come and listen in court. I telling the judge wah he do and how he was. Joshua was a bad boy, is me son but he bad and I not hiding for him,” she said.
Joshua
Joshua and Angela only started dating in January of this year, a mere month following his release from prison after he had robbed an elderly man with a toy gun. Sandra does not know where her son got his anger from but she partly blames it on the marijuana he smoked and the fact that he was taken away from her when he was just over a year old.
Days after he killed his girlfriend, Joshua refuses to take a bath and he is in the lock-ups with Angela’s blood splattered all over him. He is also naked because the police refuse to allow him to wear clothes as he has threatened to take his life.
According to Sandra, Joshua and his older brother were given to her husband by the court when they were just one and two; she did not say why she lost custody of her two children. They ran away from their father’s home at ages 11 and 12 but she cannot say the reason with any certainty though she recounted they said they were being mistreated.
A month after he ran away, Joshua stole $110 000 from a home and was sent to the New Opportunity Corps for four years. Upon his release, he came to live with her and since then he has been smoking marijuana and would hop from job to job. He had no proper schooling, Sandra said.
Last year he was arrested for robbing an elderly man with a toy gun and spent four months in prison. It was after he was released that he started dating Angela. Sandra recalled that one night Joshua had called her and told her to go to Plaisance to pick him up as some persons were threatening to beat him. It was only recently she learnt that he had attacked an acquaintance of Angela’s.
After that incident, Angela’s relatives said he was banned from visiting their home and they had begged and pleaded with the young woman to leave the young man.
Sandra has also since learnt that her son physically assaulted the girl in the past. According to her, she had told Joshua not to let Angela visit their home because she was not sure of her age and she wanted no girl in her home when she was not there.
“You know how he cuss me, he cuss me mercilessly for Angela. Ask she [pointing to her daughter] how he cuss me up all on Mother’s Day and tell me how he ain’t want me going back and visit he in prison. I use to go, I old, I use to go because is me son and one time I nearly fall down,” she said.
Sandra repeatedly said that she was afraid of her son and she has no problem with him being described as a monster because to her, that is what he is now. At one time, he attacked his sister and hurt her back because he felt that she had arrived too late from school. “I tell the police that he does smoke and they should come and catch he with the joint in his hands and lock he up,” she added.
Sandra feels that history is repeating itself as she recalled that after she married Joshua’s father, she learnt that he had killed his girlfriend and served eight years in prison. “Just like this you know, he come from the bush and somebody tell he how the woman had somebody else and he kill she in Duke Street Kingston, slice off she breast and all. And he tell Joshua, you know, because he tell me how he father murder a woman and one a he son got to do the same,” Sandra said.
Since last Thursday’s murder Sandra said her ex-husband has not called or gone to see his son and the one time she called the man’s phone, he hung up on her. She pledged to ensure that her son faces the consequences of his actions but said she would visit him in prison because he is her son.
Sandra does not accept that she may have failed him as a mother but accepted that he is a monster, he is cruel and he is deranged. She wants everyone to know what type of person he is, she said.
