Girl: ‘He told me to shut up or he will kill me’

The bravery of a 15-year-old girl who had the presence of mind to sneak a telephone call to her mother while being carried away to be raped, may have saved her life back on December 18, 2008.{{more}}

Pius Alvis stands charged with kidnapping and raping the teenager. His fate should have been decided yesterday by a nine-member jury at the Criminal Assizes at the High Court.

The Byera resident conducted his own defence.

When the trial began on Tuesday, May 31, the girl, now 18, related her ordeal to the court.

She noted that she had attended a function at a school with her mother and sister. She said she ran away from the function after her mother slapped her because of an incident that occurred between her (the girl) and her boyfriend.

She said she ran to the backyard of a nearby church, where her then boyfriend met her and carried her away in a truck. She said she went to her boyfriend’s home and slept there until about 12 midnight. While her boyfriend slept, the girl said she took her cellular phone and sneaked out the front door.

The girl said while standing at the side of the road, she saw a man standing in the dark on the other side. She said the man came over and held onto her hands.

“I never saw him before; he told me to shut up and start walking…” she recounted.

While walking, the girl said she was trying to pull away from the man, but he did not let go of her hand.

“He told me to shut up or he will (expletive) kill me, like how he kill the men on the boat in St Lucia…

I was screaming and I was really scared, because I at that age I didn’t want to die so early, because I have goals to achieve,” the girl told the court.

She said while Alvis was dragging her along, she slipped her cellular phone from inside her bra when he wasn’t paying attention; dialled her mother’s number and told her: Mommy! Mommy! is Colonaire beach they taking me.”

She said she was then taken to the beach when the defendant placed his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.

“… After I bite him in the palm of he hand, he said he going teach me how to fight and I tell him I don’t need to learn to fight because I already know how to fight,” she said.

The girl said she was slapped repeatedly, then thrown to the ground. She said she was again slapped several times before the defendant started kissing her neck, after which he pulled off her underwear.

She said she was then raped.

The girl, who cried intermittently throughout her testimony, told the court that she was trying to stop him from raping her, but he repeatedly hit her in the face. “He told me to shut up or he will kill me, and after he done, he told me to put on me (expletive) clothes. He even tell me he love me, and want to have a baby with me,” she stated.

When asked by prosecutor Sejilla McDowall how she felt, the girl replied: “I felt disgusted and humiliated.”

The girl said moments later, she saw someone running towards them on the beach in a white vest; who turned out to be her father. “When he came and hold onto him, (Alvis) I say ‘Daddy! Daddy! he rape me’.”

The girl said she ran up to the main road where she met her mother and they both went to the Colonaire Police Station.

When the father took the stand, he told the court that when he arrived on the scene with a cutlass in his hand, he grabbed Alvis by shirt and asked him what he was doing with his daughter. He said Alvis told him that he did not know it was his daughter.

“I said regardless of what, you don’t have somebody’s child at this time of night,” the father said.

The man said he “plan” (struck) Alvis with the cutlass after he began wrestling with him. He added that when he carried Alvis to the main road, another fight began and while on the ground, the father said he bit off part of Alvis’ nose to leave a mark. “When we been wrestling up on de ground, ah pelt ah bite in he face and spit it out so it could leave ah mark; dats the only way I coulda mark him,” he said.

In his testimony, Alvis told the court that the entire story told by the girl and her father was concocted.

“Ah story dem ah tell pon me. Me never rape nobody,” he maintained.

Alvis said the girl had asked him to follow her home, after saying she was involved in a dispute with her boyfriend.

The girl denied having an altercation with her boyfriend and stated that the night of the incident was the first time she had seen Alvis.

In his defence, Alvis said it was the girl that led him to the beach, because she said it was a shorter way to get home. He noted that they were on the beach for an hour and during that time he kept telling her “Let we go, but she keep saying wait na, wait na,”

Justice Frederick Bruce-Lyle presided over the matter.

Attorney Colin John also led the crown’s case with McDowall.