(Trinidad Guardian) Two young lovers died in a car accident in Williamsville yesterday morning.
The love story of Stacy Paul, 17, and Ronald “Papa” Deonarine, 21, ended tragically shortly before 1 am at Garth Road, near Jones Street, not far from their homes. Deonarine was driving his grandfather’s car but did not have a driver’s licence. Paul died on the scene, while Deonarine died while being treated at the San Fernando General Hospital.
Distraught by the death of his only child, Paul Mathura said his grief was compounded when he had to run from the accident scene—with his daughter’s body still in the car—after a police officer attempted to arrest him. With tears streaming down his face, he said Paul, his only child, left home at around 9 pm but did not say where she was going.
He said a few days ago he expressed concern to his daughter about her boyfriend driving without a licence but she did not listen to him.
Paul, a former student of Marabella North Secondary School, wrote the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate and was awaiting results. Mathura said he found out about his daughter’s relationship with Deonarine three weeks ago, said he spoke to the young man’s parents.
When neighbours told him his daughter had been in a serious accident, Mathura said he hesitated before leaving home.
“I wanted to remember her as being jolly, my princess,” he said.
When he arrived at the scene of the accident, his daughter’s body was still in the back seat. He said it appeared as though she had a broken neck.
He complained, however, that he was treated unfairly and harshly by the police.
“I was hustled by the Princes Town police too. I had to run throughout the bushes. A woman police wanted to arrest me because I was talking. I was saying apparently this guy had no licence, how he grandparents allow him to use this vehicle. It is something I was puzzled about and I was expressing myself,” he said.
“This woman corporal come snatching my throat and telling me, ‘You want to spend the night in Princes Town cell grieving for your daughter?’ I had to run away all through the bushes,” he said.
Mathura denied that he behaving in a violent or threatening manner. He admitted that he stopped using cocaine and alcohol in 1993, mainly because of his daughter who he had been caring for on his own since she was six years old. Paul would have celebrated her 18th birthday in September.
About a mile away at Deonarine’s home at Jones Street, his sister Ariel, 18, said no one told them how the accident occurred. She said when relatives arrived on the scene, Deonarine was conscious and groaning in pain. He suffered head and internal injuries.
Ariel said the family was not aware that he used to drive the car, but he had about two years of driving experience. His father used to allow him to drive.
She said the last time she saw her brother alive was around 7 pm at their home. She did not know when he left home or where he went.
She described her brother and his girlfriend as “the best couple” and explained: “They were the happiest with each other. That is the happiest I had ever seen my brother. All giggles, all laughs, they never argued, they were always good. They went meant to be together.”
Deonarine, the third of four siblings, left school early was not permanently employed and was working on getting his driver’s permit.
“He was trying to go along a positive road and live a positive life,” she said.