A Bel­mont woman, who was said to have been a long-time vic­tim of do­mes­tic abuse at the hands of a close male rel­a­tive, was stabbed to death on Sun­day dur­ing an ar­gu­ment with the sus­pect at her home.

The bloody at­tack against Wendy Bertrand of Bowen Trace, St Barbs, Bel­mont, re­port­ed­ly oc­curred in front of her eight-year-old son.

Bertrand, 53, who worked as a nurse at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, suc­cumbed to in­juries af­ter be­ing stabbed with a kitchen knife mul­ti­ple times about the head, face, neck, chest and arms dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

Res­i­dents con­tact­ed po­lice around 6.45 am, to re­port a do­mes­tic dis­tur­bance at Bertrand’s home, not­ing that shouts and screams were heard.

The male sus­pect was said to have fled the house be­fore they ar­rived.

Emer­gency Health Ser­vices took her to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where she died around 7.36 am.

Guardian Me­dia was told the sus­pect was charged with as­sault­ing Bertrand just over six weeks ago, when he al­leged­ly stabbed her with a bro­ken bot­tle, caus­ing griev­ous in­jury.

Of­fi­cers con­firmed the woman had sub­mit­ted sev­er­al re­ports of do­mes­tic abuse against the sus­pect who was known to the law en­force­ment com­mu­ni­ty.

Bertrand’s rel­a­tives yes­ter­day called on state agen­cies to do bet­ter when it came to as­sist­ing vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, as they claimed she had vis­it­ed sev­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions in the past, beg­ging for help.

Speak­ing with re­porters at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, one woman said, “The State must do bet­ter by women who are vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­cause it is hard.”

—An­na-Lisa Paul