Peter Claxton speaks about the killing of his sister
Michelle Plaza yesterday. PHOTO: KARLA RAMOO

For 12 years, the life of Michelle Plaza was meticulously controlled by her husband, Francis. Every action was monitored, said Plaza’s elder brother Peter Claxton in an interview at his Arouca home yesterday. Plaza, the mother of three boys, was discovered lying in a pool of blood at her home at York Township, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. She had been shot four times.

Her husband, a firefighter with the Yoe Fire Company in York County was arrested and charged with one count of criminal homicide. Before migrating to the United States, Francis was a prisons officers, held a black belt in karate, worked as a draftsman and possessed several guns at his home, Claxton said. But the killing of the 44-year-old woman may not have been a total surprise to relatives.

Recounting numerous conversations, Claxton said all his sister desired was “out” of her marriage. “She would always tell us she was unhappy. She told us she was going to leave her husband,” Claxton said. According to Claxton, his sister also told her husband she “had enough” which then led to her shooting death. “She was on the Net probably chatting with one of her friends and her husband came in and pulled out the plug. “She told him she wanted her freedom and she wasn’t going to take it any more,” Claxton recounted.

It was at that moment, Claxton claimed, that his sister was shot dead. Faced with overwhelming despondency, Plaza, however, decided to “make her marriage work for the children sake,” her brother attested. Claxton said his sister who was pursuing her master’s in sociology dropped out of school a few weeks ago to appease her irate husband. “Her husband was angry she was going to school and he instructed her to drop out,” he said. “My sister did so to please him but she had intentions of returning.”

Control freak

Whenever Plaza called her relatives in Trinidad, her husband would be listening in on her conversations, Claxton said. “My sister had to hide to call us...If she went out with her friends he would call five, six times to find out when she was coming home....It was like mental bondage,” he said.

Surmising his brother-in-law as a “control freak,” Claxton added that Francis was also very “possessive and insecure.” “But the scary thing was that out of the home, he appeared ‘normal’ to people,” Claxton said. Plaza, however, according to her brother, never made any previous attempts to leave her husband. Supporting this decision, Claxton believed his sister “did the right thing.” “A marriage is something sacred and until ‘death do us part’...People should make every effort to mend problems,” Claxton said.

But, he said, if Plaza had been more open with her marital problems and with the intervention of relatives, she might have still been alive. Despite his sister’s life senselessly snuffed out, Claxton confessed he held no hatred towards her killer. “I don’t hate her killer...I hate the sin but not the person,” he said. Plaza is expected to be cremated in the United States on Saturday. Her ashes, her brother said, would be brought to Trinidad and scattered over the waters at Toco, one of Plaza’s favourite spots.