In a white burglar-proofed house at Essex Street, Laventille, a mother mourns. Her pain is unimaginable and has led to a hatred for fellow human beings. In her grief, Diane Henry vehemently brands human beings as "evil." Holding her head with gnarled hands, Henry wailed, her sunken eyes partially hidden behind thick, black iron bars as she spoke to this reporter.
Her tears fell freely as she softly said the name "Tecia."
A year-and-a-half ago, the nation reacted in horror to the barbaric murder of Henry's ten-year-old daughter, Tecia. The Standard Four pupil of the St Roses' Girls RC School was reported missing on June 17, 2009. She had been sent to a mini mart near her John John home to purchase a phone card and other items. She never made it to the shop.
Tecia's body was discovered four days later, stuffed in a dirt hole, a stone's throw away from her home. She had been strangled.
And a day marked for celebration turned into wailing as Tecia's funeral service was held on June 28, her 11th birthday.
'I ain't able with humans again'
Time, Henry said, has failed to soften the blow. Instead, it has made her bitter and apprehensive. "I ain't able with the humans again. They sad in Trinidad. I cannot cope. Up to now I ain't catch myself. "I know I just have to stay strong and deal with my two other kids but is every day Tecia on my mind."
Even in public, Henry revealed, it was difficult to escape reminders of her daughter's brutal murder. She said wherever she went, she was forced to relive the heinous tragedy. "I not too long come from town and I gone in a pharmacy and a woman telling me, 'Aye, I see them talking about your daughter on TV and they marching around the place," Henry said.
She recalled another recent encounter where a cashier on Charlotte Street, Port-of-Spain, recognised her as Tecia's mother. "The woman keep asking me how I coping and keep bringing up what happen and I just break down in tears one time. "She tell me I have to pray but I say, that is what I doing right through. Then she ask me if they hold anybody and I say they ain't hold nobody but I know it have people who they say involve and they done dead already," Henry said.
On July 6, the bullet-riddled corpse of Ricardo "Docs" McCarthy, the mastermind behind Tecia's murder and gang leader of Laventille's Block Eight, was found in a track off Belle Vue Road in Long Circular, St James.
Since the day Tecia was laid to rest, Henry has not returned to visit her daughter's grave nor does she plan to do so anytime soon.
"I did not go back there since. Not now. I just cannot go."
Too much talk from Govt, people
As the murder toll continues to rise, Henry is appealing to the authorities to "stop the talking and act." "These people sickening, they just going into your house to come and rape and kill you. When I see the news it does hurt my heart but I going through my pain too."Lamenting that the lives of too many innocent children are being lost, Henry charged that from "Government" to "people who only marching up and down" were not being proactive enough.
"All of them need to stop talking because that is all they doing.
I cannot handle talk again. I don't know what it is with them right
now. Even from the Government is just talk," Henry said. She said families of murder victims were often left to mend their shattered lives without any state assistance. Henry said if she had one Christmas wish it would be for a new home.
"I want help for my children. I don't get anything from anybody. I want to release myself from this environment. "When my daughter dead nobody come to help me. Everybody like they sleeping. It have mothers who suffering out there just like me and people forget them," Henry said.
Living life as a recluse
At the front of her home, Henry operates a small shop, selling an assortment of basic household goods. With the Yuletide season in full swing, Henry keeps busy "stocking up to make a change." The hustle, she said, allowed her to briefly escape her pain. "My daughter did real like Christmas and since she dead I not seeing that. I have no Christmas again. But I still have all Tecia things. Is only she bookbag I throw away."
Henry's interaction with the Laventille community is limited since most times she locks herself inside her home. "I don't mingle with people. I have nothing to tell nobody. I get too afraid of the human race. You see what happen to my daughter, I cannot trust nobody at all.
"People should take this thing serious and I is not the only mother who crying because it have other children who dead," Henry said.
Asked how Tecia's twin sisters, Tia and Tamara, were coping, Henry said they had no choice but to move on with their lives.
"My kids seem as if they coping. They have no choice. But I cannot know what in my children mind because their sister dead. "They does talk about Tecia and all in school the children does be asking them if they have a sister and she dead and how she dead," Henry said.
Describing her daughter's death as "real troublesome," Henry, sobbing uncontrollably, added: "You could imagine what my daughter went through? That man strangle she."
'Stillness' pervades John John
After Tecia's death, a peace order was established in the John John community, warning reputed gang leaders about the consequences of their actions. Describing the atmosphere pervading the community as "still," Henry said Tecia's death should have been a uniting factor. "This community suppose to be real humble and cool it, but that is not so. The community kind of still tough.
"I eh hearing no set of thing happening but I know these vipers around," Henry said. She called on "all them who playing games" to turn to God and allow peace to prevail. "God would deal with all them who playing games. Who have eyes let them see because no parent should go through what I going through.
"This pain remain in my soul and nobody would never know how I feeling unless they going through it."
Getting courage from God
Faith in the Almighty and the knowledge that Tecia is in a better place have provided the impetus for Henry to forge ahead. "Is God giving me that courage otherwise I know I might have done drop down already, and I know I have to stand up straight for my next two girls," Henry said.She said Tecia's death had made her more vigilant in keeping watch over Tia and Tamara.
"I never used to get kicks with my children. I was real serious and even the neighbours used to get horrors and say I only keeping my children inside. "So much of thing they say but I have my good sense and I know how to move with my children. "I know I have to be on track and I don't have my children outside and they only time they outside is when they going to school," Henry said.
Thanking God that her children were "doing well" at the Corpus Christi College in Diego Martin, Henry proudly boasted that was her greatest reward.
