The fam­i­ly of 12-year-old Prince Burke breathed a sigh of re­lief last night, af­ter the man who had held him cap­tive for sev­er­al hours set him free in the hills of Dibe, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James.

With a joint force of po­lice and sol­diers hunt­ing the sus­pect down, af­ter he at­tacked the boy’s moth­er, An­na In­nis-Burke, hours ear­li­er be­fore ab­duct­ing her son, the sus­pect re­leased the boy just af­ter 7 pm.

The boy sub­se­quent­ly made his way to a rel­a­tive’s home.

The man­hunt for the sus­pect con­tin­ued last evening.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the in­ci­dent stemmed from a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence dis­pute.

Po­lice have iden­ti­fied Jas­sany Bap­tiste, a re­peat crim­i­nal of­fend­er, as a per­son of in­ter­est in the case.

Po­lice said the sus­pect in the case at­tacked In­nis-Burke, drag­ging her out of her house and forc­ing her to walk to­wards Long Cir­cu­lar Road, near Belle Vue Road, where she was stabbed mul­ti­ple times.

Luck­i­ly, eye­wit­ness­es in­ter­vened, caus­ing the sus­pect to aban­don his at­tack and flee the scene. How­ev­er, the sus­pect is al­leged to have vowed to re­turn to the woman’s home to kill her son.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter be­ing dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal, where she was treat­ed for mul­ti­ple stab wounds, In­nis-Burke re­called what tran­spired.

She said the in­ci­dent oc­curred at 2 am at her Dibe, Long Cir­cu­lar Road home, when the sus­pect, whom she had bro­ken off a pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ship with, be­gan knock­ing on her front door. An­na was with her son, who was asleep at the time.

She said she at­tempt­ed to call the po­lice but the man broke down the door and gained ac­cess to her home. When he en­tered, he told her not to make any noise, threat­en­ing to stab her son.

“He had a tie strap in his hand, like he had planned every­thing be­fore he left the house. When he came back, he had the tie strap and said, ‘Tonight is it; to­day is it.’ Then he asked, ‘How do you want this to go? Do you want me to kill you and your son? Should I kill your son in front of you and make you watch, then kill you?’ I was plead­ing, ‘No, no.’ That’s when he picked up a small knife from the kitchen and start­ed stab­bing me,” she said.

In­nis-Burke said things wors­ened af­ter the man found her phone and re­alised she had at­tempt­ed to call the po­lice. He then or­dered her to put on clothes and forced her to walk to Long Cir­cu­lar Road.

“We walked un­til we reached the Am­bas­sador Ho­tel, and it felt like he want­ed to take me there to kill me. When we got there, he kept telling me to hur­ry up. I didn’t want to go in­side be­cause I knew there was no one there to save me, but I tried to walk as fast as pos­si­ble, hop­ing to keep him away from my son,” she said.

She added, “In­stinct kicked in, and I thought, ‘I can’t go there be­cause he’ll kill me.’ I heard a ve­hi­cle ap­proach­ing and start­ed to run but it drove right past. He chased af­ter me, shoved me to the ground and be­gan stab­bing me. “This hap­pened right by Belle Vue Road cor­ner. As he was stab­bing me, a van—like one of those bread vans—passed by. There was a woman in the front seat and a man dri­ving. They re­alised what was hap­pen­ing be­cause I was falling in the mid­dle of the road, and they saw the at­tack un­fold.”

The two in­di­vid­u­als in the van as­sist­ed In­nis-Burke, caus­ing the sus­pect to flee.

She begged her res­cuers to al­low her to re­turn to her Dibe home but she was bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly and was tak­en to St James Med­ical Cen­tre.

Those who as­sist­ed her alert­ed of­fi­cers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force sta­tioned at the near­by Camp Og­den on Long Cir­cu­lar Road, prompt­ing them to spring in­to ac­tion. How­ev­er, by the time they ar­rived at the woman’s home, both Prince and the sus­pect were nowhere to be found.

Prince was last seen leav­ing with the sus­pect in the di­rec­tion of a riv­er and forest­ed area be­hind his house at 5.10 am. In­nis-Burke’s step­moth­er, Re­na Ba­harat, saw the two leav­ing but did not think some­thing was wrong at the time.

“He’s very well-man­nered and qui­et, nev­er in trou­ble. He loves foot­ball—we all love foot­ball. I don’t feel good about this sit­u­a­tion at all be­cause I’m al­ways on my toes, al­ways ob­ser­vant. I didn’t see any­thing un­usu­al, noth­ing at all to in­di­cate that some­thing was wrong. Of course, I feel guilty be­ing here. I rushed to the hos­pi­tal as soon as oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers ar­rived,” Ba­harat told Guardian Me­dia as she re­called the in­ci­dent.

Ba­harat praised law en­force­ment, stat­ing, “We saw the drones and every­thing else but I’m not sure about the po­lice. I do know that the Coast Guard has he­li­copters equipped with large mag­ni­fy­ing glass­es.

“The area is very dense, in­cred­i­bly dense, and that’s the one thing we haven’t seen yet. Over­all, the armed forces and every­one in­volved are do­ing a great job. They’ve gone out twice, and it’s been hours now, but they still haven’t re­turned.”

She plead­ed at the time for the teenag­er to be re­turned home.

Ba­harat said, “He’s nev­er been in the bush; he’s not a bush child, like his moth­er, un­cles, and broth­ers. Since 5.10 am we’ve been wor­ried about whether he’s had a drink of wa­ter or eat­en any­thing. The guys who came out of the bush are all scratched up, so we re­al­ly don’t know what he’s been through. We’re just hop­ing for the best, that he comes home soon, es­pe­cial­ly as it’s get­ting dark.”

Of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, the Guard and Emer­gency Branch and the K9 Unit were as­sist­ed by per­son­nel us­ing drones to track the sus­pect and vic­tim. The In­ter-Agency Task Force was al­so in­volved.

“We are very con­cerned about the safe­ty of the young man in­volved in this mat­ter,” said As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Curt Si­mon.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit was brought in to help ad­dress the trau­ma caused by the in­ci­dent.

This in­ci­dent came af­ter Tara Ram­sa­roop, 34, and her 14-month-old daugh­ter, Ja­da Moti­lal, were trag­i­cal­ly mur­dered on Tues­day in Bar­rack­pore. That vi­o­lent at­tack oc­curred at a male rel­a­tive’s home. Ram­sa­roop was said to have been a vic­tim of do­mes­tic abuse.