Pereira loses battle with gramoxone

Leroy Pereira has got his wish. Last Tuesday night he passed away peacefully at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, 19 days after he drank the deadly weedicide gramoxone.

The case brought to mind an analogy of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in a modern Vincentian setting. {{more}}Sixteen days after his wife Anita Pereira of Arnos Vale consumed the deadly weedicide Gramoxone, her husband Leroy who originated from Park Hill, on August 26, devastated by the loss of his wife did the same. Anita, a 50-year-old mother of three died three days after she consumed the poison.

On August 31, SEARCHLIGHT interviewed Pereira as he lay at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital battling for his life.

Asked why his wife drank the weedicide, Leroy said: “I went to take some breadfruit for a friend, every time I leave home she got frustrated. She think that I’ll never come back and if that was to happen she can’t see the sense in living so she drank the gramoxone.

“I love my wife and wanted to be with her,” said Leroy giving an explanation for the tragedy.

Both Leroy and Anita have a mental history.

Leroy said he met Anita while they were patients at the Mental Hospital and got married in December last year at the Court House.