Young woman fearful after bedroom attack

A 20-year-old woman from a Windward community said she is fearful for her life after allegedly fighting off an attack by a former lover in her home during which she apparently was stabbed twice.

However, while investigations are afoot into the matter, they are supposedly being stalled by a mental illness diagnosis of the accused.

Revealing the reason why she decided to make the decision to trek to the offices of SEARCHLIGHT Newspaper to relate her complaints, the young woman who is still limping from her wound, disclosed that it was to get a little justice, and she doesn’t know what might happen.

“…Them ah say how he nah fit for tek (criminal) charge and he nah might end up go ah jail,” she relayed, “All them ting dey might go in he head, and come back again and attack me and this time probably me won’t mek it.”

The young woman said she and her boyfriend,who is eight years her senior, were together for a number of years, before the relationship ended earlier this month.

Just a day or two after this happened, she received notice from her grandmother that her mother’s house, which abuts her grandmother’s, was on fire.

“I came out and see the house full – like bare fire, and I know that I nah leave nothing inside there so it could ketch ah fire,” she said. Realising this, she then began to cry.

The police arrived and the fire was extinguished, but her mother’s house was already gutted.

The following week, between September 6 and September 7, another incident occurred.

At 11p.m on the Monday night, the young woman was speaking to someone on her phone when her Internet connection suddenly dropped out. It did not return despite her resetting the router, and although her bill was paid.

A short while after that she fell asleep, the woman said she awoke to a tapping sound on her window.

“I was there listening, I didn’t pull across the curtain or anything, and eventually the sound stopped and I eventually fall back to
sleep,” the 20-year-old said.

Then she heard a noise in the kitchen, and was listening, because her grandmother’s window was damaged from the fire, and the back door was defective.

“I get up and I go right in the walkway of my bedroom and I was peeping to see if I see anybody…,” she recalled, but not having seen anyone after a few minutes assumed that it was the cats.

“…My mind tell me to open my eyes. When I open my eyes the guy…was standing right at my bedroom door looking at me and he didn’t know I was looking at him.” she claimed.

When she saw the figure entering her bedroom, she said she cried out for her grandmother, and he rushed at her, boxing and kicking.

“…I was fighting back with him, kicking him and ting but he insist on coming back and pushing me on the bed so I can’t get up,” she recalled.

“…like he see I fighting him off and I don’t know where he got weapon from, probably he pull it from he side and he start stabbing me with it.”

However, she did not realise at the time that the weapon, which is assumed to be a knife, had made impact. She continued fighting, and her grandmother apparently came in and cried out “murdoo” and that he had come to kill her granddaughter.

The 20-year-old said she got away from her assailant at that point and tried to open the window to go outside. The assailant ran into the kitchen and outside the window.

She alleged that he, “…Come round at the window thinking well I going jump out the window so if I probably been jump out the window he woulda finish me off outside. He looking and see me, and he just watching me. I had to run and run go down in my grandmother bedroom.”

The young woman then realised that blood was running down her chest and leg. Her chest wound took four stitches and the leg wound took eight stitches.

She covered herself with a towel as she was in her undergarments, and sought refuge with a neighbour. She disclosed that the assailant did not attack her grandmother, who was calling out for the neighbours to come.

When in the hospital, the young lady described receiving a message from the individual asking for forgiveness, and hinting that he may commit suicide.

She said that she has been told that the person has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and the police can’t question him because of a document from a doctor.

SEARCHLIGHT reached out to the police station in the district, and the Inspector has confirmed that reports on the stabbing and fire were made.

“We are waiting on certain directives before we proceed any further with that matter. But the matter is still being investigated, and it’s not the end of the road, it’s not the end of the investigation, but we are awaiting some other instructions before we proceed any further,” the officer indicated.

The Inspector was asked whether generally speaking, when persons are diagnosed with a mental illness, the police are unable to question them.

The officer noted that it’s, “not that the police can’t question them, we have to be satisfied that they are in a frame of mind at the time to answer those questions.”