Geisha Kow­lessar

Sift­ing through through sev­er­al doc­u­ments yes­ter­day, Joanne James vowed eter­nal love for her for­mer hus­band, Sean. An act­ing po­lice cor­po­ral at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, Sean shot dead his lover Dor­na Noel and then turned the po­lice-is­sued re­volver on him­self at Noel's work­place in Curepe on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

Sean and Noel, who shared a com­mon-law re­la­tion­ship lived at Harp­er Lane, off Reid Lane in D'Abadie. James, who iden­ti­fied Sean's body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, said yes­ter­day: "I love my hus­band. I will al­ways love my hus­band and that will nev­er change." An eleven-year "per­fect" mar­riage be­tween James and Sean end­ed in di­vorce a few months ago. Two daugh­ters, 17 and six, were chil­dren of that union. But James' world came to a dev­as­tat­ing halt when she dis­cov­ered Sean was in­volved in an in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ship with Noel for al­most a year. And that re­la­tion­ship, James said, re­sult­ed in the break­ing up of her mar­riage. "We were a nor­mal cou­ple...We were hap­py, our lives were go­ing great," she said.

"We lived in an area where every­one were cou­ples and then things just end­ed. It's re­al­ly sad." The ex-wife and the lover, how­ev­er, nev­er came face-to-face. The first time James saw Noel was from a pho­to­graph tak­en yes­ter­day of Noel's iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card. "I need to see that pho­to...I need to see what the woman look like," James prod­ded. She then shook her head and made no re­mark when the pho­to was shown. De­spite shoot­ing Noel once in the chest at close range, Sean was por­trayed by his ex-wife as "cool and calm." James de­scribed Sean as a ded­i­cat­ed hus­band and de­vot­ed fa­ther. Vi­o­lence, James said, adamant­ly, was "not of Sean." "In all my years of mar­riage, my hus­band was nev­er like that...far from it," she said.

"He was very lov­ing and qui­et. He nev­er raised his hand at me. I nev­er saw that side of him." A lack of cop­ing skills was what might have pushed Sean over the edge, his aunt Pamela O'Neil said. "Po­lice­men have prob­lems like any any­one else, too," she said. "We don't want Sean's death be in vain and help should be giv­en to po­lice of­fi­cers who have prob­lems and can­not cope."

Death threats

But Noel's an­guished rel­a­tives paint­ed a dif­fer­ent pic­ture of James. They spoke of con­stant death threats and ha­rass­ment, cul­mi­nat­ing in Noel des­per­ate­ly want­i­ng out of the re­la­tion­ship. Jacque­line George, Noel's step­moth­er, said that last Sat­ur­day, Sean placed a cut­lass to Noel's throat, threat­en­ing to end her life. "I had to go and get Dor­na around mid­night on Sat­ur­day...She did not want to re­main home be­cause she was ter­ri­fied," George said. "When we called the po­lice, they said ei­ther Dor­na or Sean had to leave the house." She said by the time she ar­rived at Noel's home, Sean had al­ready left. Ac­cord­ing to George, Noel in­sist­ed that Sean packed his bags and leave "her place."

"That was Dor­na's place and she said she was not leav­ing," she said. "So Sean took the keys and said he was not giv­ing her back un­til he got his things." Short­ly af­ter that, Sean and Noel met briefly, George said, af­ter which Sean begged for for­give­ness. "He told Dor­na he knew what he did was wrong and he want­ed to make up. "But Dor­na told him she was scared and that was the end of it." But on Tues­day night, she said, Sean was spot­ted in Noel's yard and again he promised to kill her. "She called the po­lice but they did not come un­til the next morn­ing," George said. By that time, she said, Sean was al­ready gone. Dur­ing Noel's re­la­tion­ship with Sean, the 42-year-old woman made no pre­vi­ous com­plaints about her lover's be­hav­iour. George said the first time she learnt her step­daugh­ter was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing do­mes­tic prob­lems was last Sat­ur­day.

"Dor­na was al­so very shocked by Sean's be­hav­iour," she said. "But she kept re­peat­ing she was afraid of Sean and she want­ed out be­cause she can­not live that way." Noel's aunt, Edith, who open­ly wept, said Sean al­so at­tempt­ed to stran­gle her niece on Sat­ur­day. So bad­ly swollen was Noel's throat that she was un­able to eat the fol­low­ing day, Edith said. But Noel's mur­der was loom­ing, rel­a­tives be­lieved. The day be­fore she was killed, Edith said Sean begged Noel to take the day off from work. "But she told him the doc­tor was out of the coun­try had she had to go to work...And ap­par­ent­ly he fol­low her to work and that was it," she said.

Po­lice neg­li­gence

Had the po­lice tak­en Noel's threat se­ri­ous­ly, her life might have been spared. "If the po­lice was check­ing up on Sean, they might have no­ticed when he took the gun and re­alise some­thing was wrong," George said. She al­so charged that since Sean was a po­lice­man, his col­leagues might have been more re­luc­tant to act. Ad­vis­ing young women to im­me­di­ate­ly speak out, George said Noel bot­tled up her prob­lems un­til it was too late. "A lot of peo­ple feel they could han­dle the sit­u­a­tion and they don't see the se­ri­ous­ness of it or they don't look for help un­til some­thing dras­tic hap­pens," she said.