RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

A 35-year-old moth­er of three was killed and her body burnt be­yond recog­ni­tion at her home in Man­zanil­la on Thurs­day evening, by a man she re­port­ed­ly knew.

The trag­ic in­ci­dent re­port­ed­ly took place in full view of Pa­tri­cia Phillip’s sev­en-year-old son.

The sus­pect lat­er sur­ren­dered him­self to the po­lice and is cur­rent­ly at the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion.

Phillip was orig­i­nal­ly from Ea­gle Av­enue, Branch Trace, En­ter­prise, but she was killed while at a friend’s house on the East­ern Main Road, Man­zanil­la.

Po­lice said Phillip’s son was not hurt dur­ing the in­ci­dent, but was re­port­ed­ly found walk­ing on the streets.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 5.30 pm, Phillip was with her son at the friend’s home when the sus­pect stormed in and at­tacked her.

Phillip’s friend told po­lice that he ran away and lat­er saw his house on fire.

Po­lice said an au­top­sy will be done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre to de­ter­mine the ac­tu­al cause of death.

The friend, po­lice said, went to the Man­zanil­la Po­lice Sta­tion where he re­port­ed the mat­ter.

Sgt Bhim and Cpl Singh, along with oth­er of­fi­cers, went to the scene.

A team from the Ma­yaro Fire Sta­tion un­der the su­per­vi­sion of FS­SO Thomas al­so re­spond­ed and was able to put out the fire.

Phillip’s body, which was burnt be­yond recog­ni­tion, was found among the rub­ble of the house in an area be­lieved to be the liv­ing room. Phillip’s son, po­lice said, was found in good health and un­harmed ap­prox­i­mate­ly a quar­ter-mile away from where the in­ci­dent oc­curred.

At the rel­a­tives’ home in En­ter­prise on Fri­day, Phillip’s younger sis­ter Tazmin Hus­sein said Phillip was the moth­er of three– two boys and a girl aged 15, 14 and sev­en.

“She would stay home most­ly and see about the house­hold. She was a nice per­son. Very car­ing for every­one. She would help out every­one. We don’t know what hap­pened. We want some an­swers.”

Phillip’s cousin, Sa­lome Mo­hammed, said the fam­i­ly is not tak­ing it well.

Mo­hammed said, “Hav­ing lost our cousin to this trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence and the sev­en-year-old son to wit­ness every­thing is very heart­break­ing.”

“We didn’t get any sleep af­ter the news yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) and it’s hard as a woman to wake up to these things every oth­er day. It’s just un­be­liev­able,” Mo­hammed added.

She may have been the last one to speak to Phillip be­fore tragedy struck and said that she sound­ed hap­py.

“I had just spo­ken to her 30 min­utes be­fore the in­ci­dent be­cause she want­ed to know if her son, Je­re­my, went to school she was hap­py and nor­mal. She wasn’t in any dis­tress when she called.”

“She was a home­mak­er and when she was younger she tried to run a shop but that didn’t work out too well and off and on she would babysit for one of the neigh­bours,” Mo­hammed al­so said.

Asked if they knew she had been abused al­leged­ly by the sus­pect, Phillip’s rel­a­tives said she nev­er told them any­thing, how­ev­er, on Thurs­day night af­ter the in­ci­dent they al­leged­ly heard from Phillip’s chil­dren that the sus­pect used to hit her.

“But she nev­er told us any­thing about it,” Mo­hammed said.