Sascha Wil­son

At the fu­ner­al ser­vice of her mur­dered friend Adana Stacey Dick, An­n­marie Pelti­er called on men to re­spect a woman’s de­ci­sion to walk away from a re­la­tion­ship.

“I want to say one small thing to men in Trinidad and To­ba­go. When we say no more as women, we mean that. We sim­ply mean that and move on. You don’t have the right to de­mand more,” said Pelti­er.

Dick, 36, was al­leged­ly mur­dered by a close male rel­a­tive while on way to make a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­port at St Mar­garet's Po­lice Sta­tion on June 30. The moth­er of five was stabbed mul­ti­ple times at a bus shed along South­ern Main Road, St Mar­garet's, a short dis­tance away from the po­lice sta­tion.

The 47-year-old sus­pect is still on the run.

Pay­ing trib­ute to her dur­ing the ser­vice at David Guide & Son Fu­ner­al Chapel in Cou­va, Pelti­er said Dick al­ways wore a smile and was a kind and lov­ing per­son.

“It seemed like she did not have no prob­lems on this earth…and then we find out be­hind, you could not be­lieve.”

Speak­ing af­ter­ward with Guardian Me­dia, Pelti­er said she worked with Dick for more than two years and she nev­er once com­plained about be­ing abused. She said, “Prob­a­bly she had re­port­ed it many times but any kind of abuse in any way what­so­ev­er is not some­thing to keep to your­self, that is not a se­cret.”

Photograph of domestic victim Adana Stacy Dick.

INNIS FRANICS

She said the prob­lem is that men feel they own women and want to con­trol them.

“What I have to say to young peo­ple is that the first lash, the first abu­sive word, the first sign that you are in dan­ger, you could be preg­nant, you could be about to make that ba­by, run.”

In her eu­lo­gy, an emo­tion­al Ka­maria Dick said they shared a very close re­la­tion­ship and did most things to­geth­er.

“We had good times and bad mo­ments but I nev­er imag­ined we would be ripped apart from each oth­er like this. Al­though I am hurt and sad­dened and dis­mayed I still thank God for the time he grant­ed to her on earth with me.”

She fond­ly re­called her beau­ti­ful smile, de­li­cious cook­ing, and unique style.

“I know be­fore you took your last breath you made that con­nec­tion to God and sub­mit­ted your be­ing to his will en­sur­ing that you are his eter­nal child.”

She promised Dick that she would take care of her chil­dren and con­tin­ue the moth­er­ly re­la­tion­ship she has with them. To Dick’s loved ones who want to lash out in anger, Pas­tor Claire Hospedales ad­vised them to seek com­fort from God.

“All the in­di­vid­u­als who want to say why and want to quar­rel. I al­ways tell in­di­vid­u­als the first per­son to quar­rel with is Je­sus, don’t give no­body piece of your mind be­cause if you give every­body a piece you will lose it and you will go crazy.”

Dick was laid to rest at Di­a­mond Ceme­tery at Clax­ton Bay.