Okemo Todd suffered years of abuse at the hands of her reputed husband and early yesterday morning was brutally stabbed to death during a heated argument.
The 20-year-old mother of two was stabbed several times and she bled to death outside Ketley Primary School in Ketley Street, Charlestown, opposite her home. Todd was forced to flee her home around 2 am yesterday after she was wounded and according to reports, she jumped over a six-foot high zinc fence to escape the assault.
Police are hunting Todd’s reputed husband who fled the couple’s Charlestown home minutes after the incident. The man escaped leaving his lifeless reputed wife lying on the roadside and their two infant daughters alone in the house. Reports are that the four-month-old and two-year-old were covered in their mother’s blood.
“They does fight a lot in deh,” a neighbour said yesterday. But no one in the immediate area of the couple’s home recalled hearing the fracas which led to Todd’s death. Based on the sequence of events, the couple had settled in when an argument erupted early yesterday morning. It might have raged on for a while before it escalated.
It was close to 2 am when an injured Todd jumped over the fence of her home crying out for help. She noticed a security guard in the school compound opposite and ended up also jumping over the school fence to get to the guard. The guard went to her assistance and Todd was reported to have held onto him, refusing to let go. At this time, her reputed husband, who was pursuing her, had also jumped over the fence, but when he saw the guard he fled the scene.
The security guard called out for assistance and a resident in the area called the police. Todd was placed on the ground outside the school and it was there that she took her last breath. The police showed up at the scene within minutes and they rushed her to the Georgetown Public Hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Todd’s blood was still visible outside the school when Stabroek News visited yesterday and neighbours were gathered at the scene discussing the couple’s turbulent relationship.
A neighbour recalled that just last month Todd’s reputed husband had beaten her severely forcing her to flee and seek refuge at her house nearby. “I was home when this person came bolting inside the house and then I hear me bedroom door shut. I didn’t know it was Shenell,” the neighbour related. Todd is popularly known in the area as ‘Shenell’.
The neighbour recalled that Todd was bleeding from the head and she was trembling in fear of the man she lived with. She said Todd refused to leave her room even after the police showed up, saying at the time that she did not want any police story.
According to the neighbour, Shenell only left her home after her mother-in-law visited and talked with her. She said Todd then left the home for a few days, but returned to continue living with the man. She said couple appeared to be going good until now.
Stabroek News spoke with Todd’s sister, Oninco Leacock, who confirmed that her sister was a victim of domestic abuse.
She said Todd worked as a vendor at Stabroek Market and recalled that a short while ago a nasty fight had erupted between her sister and the man at the market. She said the man had threatened to throw Todd into a building nearby and the row had escalated to the point where he almost threw her to the concrete on her head.
The sister, who was composed, said Todd moved away from the family’s Sophia home several times to go back with the man. She said arguments would break out and her sister would move back home only to go back with the man a little while after. She could not say whether her sister had filed any police reports against the man, but she said Todd always went back.
“She wanted her children to know their father and to be near him,” the sister said, in an attempt to explain why Todd endured the abuse. She said the family was devastated by the death of her sister and added that her mother was not taking it too well.
