Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A 27-year-old woman was chased down by her ex-lover who, in a fit of rage, ploughed in­to her with his car in Debe on Tues­day night.

Kiefer Wil­son, al­so known as Di­ane, of Caratal Road, Gas­par­il­lo, died on the me­di­an along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­ten­sion af­ter the at­tack.

Po­lice said Wil­son was lim­ing with a 42-year-old male friend, who came from abroad to cel­e­brate her birth­day last Sat­ur­day, at a bar in Gas­par­il­lo, when her 26-year-old ex-boyfriend drove by and saw them. There was a con­fronta­tion but Wil­son and her friend left in a white Aqua. How­ev­er, the sus­pect pur­sued them in a Maz­da 3.

While near­ing the Gand­hi Vil­lage round­about on the south­bound lane just be­fore 10 pm, the sus­pect sud­den­ly swerved in front of them and stopped, re­sult­ing in their ve­hi­cle hit­ting his.

Wil­son, her friend and her ex-lover came out of their cars.

There was an al­ter­ca­tion and the sus­pect struck Wil­son with a wheel span­ner in her head. The woman and her friend ran to es­cape the sus­pect, head­ing along the me­di­an on­to the north­bound lane. How­ev­er, the sus­pect re­turned to his car and chased af­ter them. He even­tu­al­ly slammed in­to Wil­son, who land­ed in a drain on the me­di­an and died min­utes lat­er. The sus­pect’s ve­hi­cle al­so crashed in the me­di­an.

The po­lice lat­er took the sus­pect to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he was treat­ed and dis­charged. He re­mains in po­lice cus­tody.

The po­lice re­turned to the scene yes­ter­day with Wil­son’s friend as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ued.

Bury­ing his face in his hands when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, Wil­son’s un­cle, Stephen Wil­son, was too dis­traught to speak with the me­dia.

Wil­son’s old­er sis­ter, Shaz­ara Sankar, said her cousin called her with the trag­ic news at 4.30 am yes­ter­day. She said her sis­ter had end­ed the re­la­tion­ship with the sus­pect “a long while ago,” but she nev­er ex­pect­ed him to hurt her.

“The last time I talked to her about him was last week and she tell me she block him off of every­thing be­cause he was too tox­ic,” Sankar said with tears in her eyes.

“He had a ten­den­cy of com­ing and park­ing up in front her house when he don’t get through with her phone. He ac­tu­al­ly came in front of my house look­ing for her at a point in time and she say he was just too tox­ic and she just fed-up of him and she not on that right now.”

She said Wil­son’s friend, who lives in Ja­maica, sur­prised her for her birth­day but as far as she knew they were not in an in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ship.

As they try to cope with her loss, Sankar said she was hop­ing to speak with Wil­son’s friend to get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of what hap­pened.

She said her sis­ter nev­er made a po­lice re­port against the sus­pect. How­ev­er, she said Wil­son had con­fid­ed in her about a re­cent in­ci­dent.

“He came. She was in a car to come to San Fer­nan­do and he pulled her out of the car. She said she start­ed to cry ... He put her in his car and she did not tell me what hap­pened af­ter that.”

She said her sis­ter lat­er told her she was ashamed and did not want any­one to know what hap­pened.

How­ev­er, she ad­vised women not to ig­nore warn­ing signs in their re­la­tion­ships.

“If you have a prob­lem with some­body, the slight­est thing, let some­body know be­cause my sis­ter used to keep a lot to her­self and my fa­ther said he did not know this was go­ing on. It es­ca­late so fast. My sis­ter did not even thought that per­son would have done that to her.”

Mean­while, the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Re­source Net­work (IWRN) and the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV) is again ex­press­ing con­cern about in­ci­dents of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

In a state­ment, the IWRN urged vic­tims to take do­mes­tic vi­o­lence se­ri­ous­ly, as ig­nor­ing it can lead to death. They al­so re­mind­ed vic­tims that stalk­ing is clas­si­fied as do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. The IWRN called on the po­lice to take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­ports, in­stead of send­ing vic­tims back in­to the arms of their abusers. IWRN can be con­tact­ed on Face­book or What­sApp at 795-9531.

CADV al­so not­ed that with­in the last month, two young women were killed as a re­sult of in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence, and this week a moth­er died at the hands of a close male rel­a­tive.

“We can­not em­pha­sise enough that this trend will con­tin­ue un­less we col­lec­tive­ly ad­dress the is­sue of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence.”

CADV al­so called for tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty to be ad­dressed with­in the con­text of healthy, re­spect­ful re­la­tion­ships.

“Many women and men are stay­ing in un­healthy re­la­tion­ships which can be detri­men­tal to their well-be­ing and safe­ty. Many per­pe­tra­tors do not han­dle re­jec­tion very well. They be­come vi­o­lent when part­ners try to move on or ex­it vi­o­lent re­la­tion­ships.”

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.