Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter—In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A Freeport moth­er, whose hus­band was hacked to death by a men­tal­ly-ill rel­a­tive, be­lieves the in­ci­dent could have been avoid­ed had po­lice and emer­gency health ser­vices act­ed and took the rel­a­tive away.

Speak­ing at her home on Grant Trace Ex­ten­sion, Freeport yes­ter­day, Pauline Gopie, 56, said her hus­band, De­o­dath, 58, did not have to die.

“When they came days be­fore this hap­pen, we asked them to take him to St Ann’s or to Ward 1 in the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and they didn’t do it. That is what they does al­ways do. This could have been avoid­ed!” a dis­traught Gopie said.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, around 4 am yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers of the Freeport sta­tion re­spond­ed to a re­port about a man armed with a cut­lass. When of­fi­cers ar­rived at the scene they spoke to Gopie, who told them she had ear­li­er seen her rel­a­tive with a cut­lass in his hand and blood splat­tered on him. Po­lice lat­er found the de­ceased on his bed with chop wounds to his back and neck. The sus­pect was found in his bed­room with the weapon.

Gopie said apart from the in­ac­tion by the po­lice, her hus­band did not heed her re­peat­ed warn­ing not to leave the cut­lass where the rel­a­tive could ac­cess it.

“I have a cut­lass that I used to clean the yard and when I done with it I does hide it. I used to tell him not to have it out­side be­cause you know how (name called) is.”

Gopie said on­ly Sat­ur­day night her hus­band had used the cut­lass to cut pork for an up­com­ing or­der. The fam­i­ly ran Roti Boys cater­ing ser­vices out of their home.

Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, the house­wife, who is par­tial­ly deaf in the left ear, a scar of years of abuse at the hands of her de­ceased hus­band, said she woke up about 2 am and saw the sil­hou­ette of the rel­a­tive with some­thing in his hand.

Af­ter turn­ing on the lights, she re­alised it was a weapon and ran back to her bed­room. She said she and her hus­band had been sleep­ing in sep­a­rate bed­rooms for years now.

“When I ran in­side I try to close the door and while I was pulling it, he was pulling it open. I lock the door. But I did not hear my hus­band scream out or any­thing and I didn’t hear the dog, is on­ly af­ter I see the dog but like he did at­tack the dog first be­fore my hus­band.”

She added, “It have a neigh­bour­hood watch, I put on the light on my phone and start to wave it to get their at­ten­tion and that is how the po­lice end up com­ing.”

Guardian Me­dia was told the fam­i­ly’s dog, Lil­ly, was stran­gled. The dog was lat­er placed in a white cro­cus bag and left at the back of the house while the blood­ied sheets were placed in black garbage bags and the blood­ied mat­tress turned over near­by. The woman and a rel­a­tive said they did not know what to do with ei­ther, so they were left there.

Gopie said her rel­a­tive stopped tak­ing his an­ti-psy­chot­ic med­ica­tion months now and she would warn her hus­band about say­ing or do­ing things to trig­ger the rel­a­tive off.

She was, how­ev­er, adamant that had the po­lice or emer­gency ser­vice tak­en the rel­a­tive away or al­low her to ad­min­is­ter his med­ica­tion un­der po­lice en­force­ment, yes­ter­day would have been an­oth­er church at­ten­dance in­stead of a fu­ner­al plan­ning.

“I bring the med­ica­tion which he does take to calm him down and they didn’t even want me to give him it. If I had give him that, he might have stayed qui­et and none of this would have hap­pened. I was plan­ning to go to church to­day (Sun­day).”

While speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau re­turned and lat­er con­tin­ued in­ter­view­ing Gopie.

—Jensen La Vende