Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

A 48-year-old teacher and moth­er was dis­cov­ered yes­ter­day morn­ing, blud­geoned to death at her Preysal, Cou­va home.

Po­lice be­lieve a male rel­a­tive beat Suzette Sylvester, a sec­ondary school teacher, with a ham­mer un­til she was dead.

A po­lice re­port states that Sylvester’s body was dis­cov­ered by her son around 6 am.

He then raised an alarm to his grand­moth­er and un­cle who live next door their home at Mowlah Trace Ex­ten­sion.

Sylvester’s moth­er told po­lice that she saw the sus­pect leav­ing the com­pound.

Po­lice said the sus­pect walked in­to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion and alert­ed them to the sit­u­a­tion.

Of­fi­cers sub­se­quent­ly went to the scene where they met griev­ing rel­a­tives who ush­ered them in­to Sylvester’s bed­room to where her body was, slumped on the ground near the bed.

Pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that Sylvester and the male rel­a­tive had an ar­gu­ment be­tween 10.30 pm and mid­night on Sun­day.

Po­lice said they were told that Sylvester lat­er went to bed at about 2.10 am Mon­day morn­ing.

Sylvester was a Sec­ondary School Lit­er­a­ture teacher at Preysal Sec­ondary School.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia at his home, Sylvester’s broth­er said he was in shock over his sis­ter’s death.

He added that if his sis­ter was in an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship he nev­er knew.

“I saw them both over the week­end and they seemed very hap­py. She was talk­ing and laugh­ing so if there was some­thing go­ing on I nev­er knew and I nev­er even sus­pect­ed any­thing.”

He added that his sis­ter was nev­er the type to be in­volved in ar­gu­ments. “She nev­er liked quar­relling. If there was any quar­rel she was the type to end it. She was al­ways jol­ly and pleas­ant.”

Sylvester’s death sent shock­waves among her col­leagues and past and present stu­dents. One of her col­leagues lament­ed: “Suz you tried…God knows how much you tried.”

“Lord I have so many ques­tions. Why her? Why he couldn’t just leave. She was soooooooo beau­ti­ful and hum­ble and every­thing per­fect. I’m sure she got up in the most per­fect spir­it to start her day with her stu­dents. What about her son? This is not fair! Suzette Sylvester I have nev­er ex­pect­ed to see this, nev­er in a mil­lion years. You were so jol­ly, al­ways laugh­ing. I just can’t ac­cept this,” one of her col­leagues wrote on so­cial me­dia.

A past stu­dent de­scribed her as a “beau­ti­ful soul,”.

“No one de­serves to die like this no one. Such a beau­ti­ful soul. She was my school mom. When peo­ple asked me how I made it through high school with the many chal­lenges I have faced in life, it’s be­cause of teach­ers like her.”

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Sylvester’s fam­i­ly, stu­dents, col­leagues and friends.

It not­ed that Sylvester moved to Preysal High School in Sep­tem­ber 2016, af­ter 15 years of ser­vice at the El Do­ra­do West Sec­ondary School.

In a re­lease, the min­istry said the ed­u­ca­tion com­mu­ni­ty was both shocked and sad­dened to learn of the trag­ic cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Sylvester’s death.

It added the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion and Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Progamme will en­gage with the school to pro­vide sup­port to staff and stu­dents.

“The Min­istry notes with great con­cern the events that led to this death and is hope­ful that the per­pe­tra­tor can be brought to jus­tice,” the min­istry said.

Not­ing the sig­nif­i­cant im­pact that this news can have on the loved ones and stu­dents of Sylvester, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “We mourn as a coun­try to­day. We mourn the loss of a life, of a woman, of an ed­u­ca­tor; in cir­cum­stances that are sad and dis­tress­ing. It is my hope that dur­ing this pe­ri­od of grief the sup­port of­fered can aid her loved ones in the ways they re­quire.”

Pres­i­dent of the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Re­sources Net­work Adri­ana San­drine-Rat­tan said do­mes­tic vi­o­lence vic­tims of­ten try to save the re­la­tion­ship and added that she heard that Sylvester was one of those.

“She was try­ing to save the re­la­tion­ship but that by them­selves can­not be saved, but some­times it reach­es a point where you have to take an ex­it to save your life.”

Rat­tan said her or­ga­ni­za­tion has made sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions to the gov­ern­ment to help vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing as­sis­tance with hous­ing.

“We rec­om­mend­ed that the gov­ern­ment look at low-cost hous­ing for vic­tims and their chil­dren be­cause they would have rea­son not to stay but leave and go to the low-cost hous­ing be­cause most vic­tims stay in abu­sive re­la­tion­ships be­cause they have nowhere else to go.”