Ak­ile Si­mon

A 30-year-old moth­er of three has been fa­tal­ly stabbed by her com­mon-law hus­band in Ari­ma, two weeks af­ter she fled from an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship. The Nanan fam­i­ly at Brazil Vil­lage, San Raphael, was plunged in­to mourn­ing yes­ter­day–the sec­ond time in 31 years–af­ter a mur­der/sui­cide in­ci­dent came right on their doorstep. Ap­par­ent­ly ob­sessed that his com­mon-law wife, Di­anne Bap­tiste had left him, Michael Isaac, in a fit of rage, bru­tal­ly stabbed her to death be­fore tak­ing his life. Isaac, 34, and Bap­tiste, 30, lived at a house along Trans­port Street, Brazil.

Bap­tiste was the moth­er of two boys and a girl, ages 14, 12 and 11.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred out­side the Gua­napo Road, Ari­ma, home of Bap­tiste's sis­ter, Rose Nanan, short­ly around 10 am, po­lice said. Ac­cord­ing to Nanan, this was not the first time Isaac at­tempt­ed to kill Bap­tiste. "He use to abuse her re­al plen­ty and she just want­ed to get out; that is why she left him. He came a night at my house with a knife to kill her about two weeks ago, but I and some fel­las from the area were around so he de­cid­ed to leave," a tear­ful Nanan said. Ac­cord­ing to Nanan, Isaac kept fol­low­ing and chas­ing Bap­tiste, plead­ing with her to come back home.

Nanan said she re­gret­ted that she could not do any­thing to save her sis­ter.

Isaac's broth­er-in-law, Steve Sama­roo de­scribed him as a very cool per­son who would go out of his way to as­sist some­one. He said he was shocked over the in­ci­dent and ex­pressed sym­pa­thy to Bap­tiste's fam­i­ly. Isaac was mar­ried to one of Sama­roo's sis­ters but they had sep­a­rat­ed. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, Bap­tiste was at Nanan's home when she re­ceived a tele­phone call from Isaac. She went out­side to speaks with him fol­low­ing which an ar­gu­ment en­sued. Isaac whipped out a knife and dealt Bap­tiste mul­ti­ple stabs about the neck and back.

Isaac was lat­er dis­cov­ered in an un­con­scious state along Neil Street, off Riv­er Road, Ari­ma with a bot­tle con­tain­ing a poi­so­nous sub­stance near his body. Both vic­tims were tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty where they suc­cumbed to their in­juries while be­ing treat­ed.

An­oth­er tragedy

Ac­cord­ing to Bap­tiste's grand­fa­ther, George Nanan, on Au­gust 7, 1979, he lost one of his daugh­ter's Pateah Bho­la un­der sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances:

"Her hus­band, Thomas chopped her to death in an area not too far from our home. He lat­er com­mit­ted sui­cide by hang­ing him­self while in prison.

"It re­al­ly hard for us here be­cause it is the sec­ond time some­thing like this hap­pened," George said.