(Trinidad Express) Three weeks ago, 22-year-old Shameia Went decided to escape a violent relationship when she was chopped in the hand for using her cellphone.
From her hospital bed, Shameia called the police and was picked up by her mother and taken to a secret location.
But Shameia, who had been mentally and physically abused for almost two years, walked out of that hideout on Friday evening.
Shameia, who was unemployed, answered her mother’s call on Saturday and refused to listen to her pleas to return home.
“The last thing she said was ‘this is my choice’ and she ended the call,” mom Sharon Went said in an interview with the Express yesterday.
The next she heard of her daughter was that she was dropped off unresponsive at the San Fernando General Hospital early yesterday morning.
“I went there around 7 a.m. and was told that my daughter had died and that I cannot see her. I don’t know what happened but heard she had bruises all over her body,” she said in tears.
Earlier that morning, police had issued an alert that a Jane Doe was dropped off at the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department unresponsive.
The report stated that the woman had no personal belongings, documentation or identification.
The “Jane Doe” was pronounced dead at around 5 a.m. and investigators were seeking the public to assist in identifying her.
Police said the woman had marks of violence and patterned bruising on her body.
The mother told police that her daughter had returned to her boyfriend’s apartment on Friday, and that she had been severely beaten in the past. Shameia had visited the San Fernando General Hospital numerous times for broken limbs and chop wounds about her body, she said.
Police went to the couple’s apartment at Johnstone Street, San Fernando, where neighbours confirmed that Shameia was heard screaming earlier that morning.
A neighbour also confessed that she and her husband placed the unconscious woman into their vehicle and dropped her off at the hospital.
The suspect, however, was not found.
Listen to your parents
Speaking with the Express at her home in La Romaine yesterday, Went said,
“From the beginning he was abusive. When he beat her she would come by me and stay a few days and go back. She made several reports and then she wouldn’t follow through with it.”
She said the suspect smashed windows and doors at her home and beat her elderly mother in March.
“But three weeks ago, she got a chop and he had to take her to the hospital. While she was there, she called the police and they took her to the station. I got a car and went for her and took her to a secret location. She stayed there until Friday, when I was told she was not in her room and the people there couldn’t find her. I called her phone and she answered on Saturday morning and said she had decided to go back with him,” the mother said.
Went said she was devastated that her daughter had lost her life in such a tragic manner and called on young women to listen to their parents.
“Please, when your parents talking to you, please listen to them. They want the best for you. I lost my daughter today. I don’t want another parent to feel this pain,” she said.
Medical reports stated that Shameia was taken to the hospital’s resuscitation area where cardiopulmonary resuscitation was performed. However, she went into cardiac arrest and died.
