(Jamaica Gleaner) The children of 65-year-old Patsy Donaldson-Powell are in shock and have been overcome with grief after finding their mother with her throat slashed allegedly by a 76-year-old farmer who lives with his wife and children in Junction, St Elizabeth, but has a child with the deceased.
The accused was taken into custody in connection with the murder of the woman, who was a livestock farmer of Exton district in Junction.
According to the police, shortly after 6 p.m. on Saturday, Donaldson-Powell’s daughter, who lives next door to her mother’s house, came home and noticed that the lights inside her parent’s house were on and went to investigate.
She saw her mother lying on her back with a severe injury to the throat.
The police later arrived, and the body of the slain woman was taken to the morgue for post mortem.
Investigators say they received information that the accused was allegedly caught abusing the deceased inside her home earlier that evening. He was taken into custody by the lawmen.
When The Gleaner visited Donaldson-Powell’s home on Sunday morning, mourners, including her immediate family and persons from the community, were gathered inside the yard where the woman was killed.
“A long time [the accused] a come around come molest my mother, even though him live wid him wife and children in an adjoining community,” Karen Brooks, another daughter of the deceased, told The Gleaner.
“Despite living with his wife, him still come get her pregnant with my younger sister, and since then, he has been an abusive person, especially when him drink up him rum and smoke him weed,” she said.
Brooks said that family members have had to call the police more than once because the accused would beat the deceased. She noted that whenever the man was warned by the police, he would return the next day and “beg my mother to take him back”.
She said: “We beg her days upon days to get rid of him, and after he attempted to burn down her house at one point, she went to take out a restraining order, but he keeps on coming back and talked her out of it.”
A grieving Brooks said that her mother had started sleeping at her brother’s home as she had become fearful of the accused. “We were not here, but I heard that he came to the yard after she came over to feed her pigs and chickens and held her down inside the house,” she said.
The Gleaner understands that the St Elizabeth police are now awaiting a forensic report to proceed.
One investigator pointed out that since that start of the year, St Elizabeth and Mandeville have recorded several incidents of domestic dispute-related murders.
