‘Chuck wanted daddy but daddy wasn’t around’

What does a mother do when she hears the news that her 16-year-old son has brutally murdered two young housewives? It must be a woman’s worst nightmare to see her son in handcuffs, pushed into and out of a prison van, placed on trial, listen to all the gory details of the act and then hear the guilty sentence passed on him. To know that never again will he be back home with her. Her grief, of course, is nothing compared to that of the family of the victims, but she grieves all the same.

A woman like that is Patricia Attin, who lives in Cocorite, and who, on the day her son Chuck Attin was found guilty of the brutal double-murder of two young housewives of Westmoorings, raised her eyes to heaven as she walked down the steps of the Hall of Justice and Court and cried out, “How my baby could kill so!” In an interview with her last week, Patricia Attin could give no explanation of the way her son turned out, except to say he wanted his father. It was the one thing she could not give him. Daddy simply was not around. She told her son: “He knows where we live, he will come to see you if he wants.” Daddy never did. Chuck’s life of crime began just before his 13th birthday. Before that, he had been, in his mother’s words, a perfect child, her baby — delivered by caesarian section.

He was a child who helped around the house, playing with his friends, going on beach limes as any other young teenager. Money was always short, but she tried her best. Then, at 13, he began to give trouble. He was accused of raping a girl after a school bazaar. He swore to his mother that he was innocent. “I could not afford to send him to the bazaar, so I was giving him a small birthday party at home. “As it was his birthday, I proceeded to prepare and keep a birthday party for him. I went down to St James and on my way back, my older sons flagged me down and told me that police hold Chuck,” she said. “That was the day I lost my baby. Next thing you know people in my neighbourhood tell me, ‘Pat, police hold your son’ and from then on, he started giving trouble,” she said. When Patricia asked Chuck if he had raped the girl, he said: “Mummy all I do was hug her up and kiss her.”

She had to go through the Juvenile Court system with him at the time. By the time he was 15 he ran away from home. “I don’t know what went wrong, I don’t have a clue,” she insisted. Patricia asked him: “Chuck, what is wrong, what seems to be the problem?” She said Chuck told her: “I need to see my father.” Patricia replied: “Chuck, you are 15 years now, every waking moment of your life is me. Since me and your dad broke up, I never moved from where I live. If he was interested in you, he knows where you live.” The closest Chuck had as a male influence in his life was Patricia’s brother. Patricia agreed that the average child would be angry that his father was not around. “The average teenager would. When Chuck was about 15 years old, he had told me about that. I kept asking him, what is it, what is your problem, tell me what you want, what you want to do, I put my heart on the table for you.” She does not know how Chuck got involved with Noel Seepersad, 29, and went to Westmoorings, that horrible day on July 11, 1994, when they raped and murdered two young mothers.

They were found guilty after a lengthy trial. Seepersad got the death sentence but because Chuck was 16 years of age, he was detained at the State’s pleasure. We would probably have heard nothing more about Chuck Attin except that a few months ago, an issue arose concerning a review of his case. Justice Allan Mendonca, after reviewing his case, found that it was wrong to detain Attin at the State’s pleasure and it should have been at the Court’s pleasure. Now, his case was back before the Court, 26 years of age, a grown man and he was treated as such by Justice Herbert Volney. About two weeks ago, when Volney sentenced Chuck to 25 years, Volney observed that the sheer brutality of the crime and the unequivocal process and direction of Attin’s mind in the execution, “leaves no room for even a lingering doubt that he was at that time, no spring chicken, no youngster with his mother’s milk on his lips, but a cold and calculated killer, his age notwithstanding.” Patricia Attin admitted that Chuck’s father was not around in his life and this is one of the things he wanted and longed for, and was probably why he turned out the way he did.

Second Son
Chuck was Patricia’s second eldest son and he was a premature baby. Having had a caesarean section with her first son, she wanted to have Chuck through normal childbirth. Doctors even told her Chuck may not be able to live because he was too premature. She breast fed him until he was almost five years old. Patricia, who choked back streams of tears as she told her story, described him as the “average” boy child. He attended Miss Harris Private School in Cocorite and the Petit Valley Community Private School, graduated to Fatima RC Primary School, Curepe, wrote the Common Entrance examination and passed for Mucurapo Junior Secondary School. Patricia felt that one of the reasons he may have started giving trouble was because of the stigma attached to his secondary school.

At the time of the Westmoorings murders, when Chuck was held for the crime, she said when the police explained to her what her son was being accused of, she was shattered. “I was in bits, close to crazy. Screaming had stopped but nobody knows, no mother expect their kids to do anything like what my son was accused of. I don’t think there is anything I could say or do to mend the wounds and the scars of the families who have been affected,” she said, weeping. “You can ask anyone anything about our family. What hurt me most is the love we have and what Chuck has been accused of, devastated the family. Our smaller babies growing up going through hell because our name has been destroyed,” she said. Even though her son is likely to be in jail well into his old age, Patricia is confident that she did her best as a mother, making the point that people  hould not judge a family since it could happen to anyone.

Aftermath
She continues to grieve for her son. She still refers to him as her “baby,” insisting that he will always be her “baby.” By now, the tears were flowing freely, her pain and anguish raw with memories as she told her story. She said people laughed at her at the Court when she called Chuck her “baby.”
Patricia is angry at how the media in general treated her son during the trials. “When the police held Chuck concerning the Westmoorings killings, the headlines were — a rapist, a murderer, talking about my just-turned 16-year-old,” she recalled. She has called on all mothers to hold on to their sons, saying that one of theirs may be next to be accused of a crime. Patricia’s other anguish is the trauma and pain of the trial and its effects on the rest of her family in the future. “Christmases and Easters will never be the same again,” she said. Patricia said even if Chuck really did the crime, she is a just mother and felt that no punishment was worthy of such a crime.

Psychologist: Chuck felt abandoned 
Clinical/Forensic Psychologist, Dr Stanley Bishop, said that with the absence of a permanent male figure in Chuck Attin’s life, he may have felt abandoned and betrayed, which, psychologically, can lead to destructive behaviour. The missing father in Attin’s life could have caused serious psychological consequences said Dr Bishop. However, neglect and emotional abuse, coming from both parents, may have triggered Attin to experience betrayal. This is a clear example of the family unit and the importance of both parents in the development of a child. Dr Bishop said if he had someone else as a surrogate, who consistently re-assured him that he/she will take care of and protect him and did not follow through on those promises, he could have developed a sense of distrust for the family member/s. “That could cause a sense of loss and betrayal, which turns into destructiveness in the form of crime as a result of emotional trauma and neglect,” he said.

He said when a child begins to feel emotionally neglected, signs of  “trouble-making” is a manifestation of this neglect. This is because the child was in conflict with his emotions on whether or not he was safe and secure or if he was abandoned and this leads to destructive behaviour. He said if a child’s sexual development is not harnessed in the right direction, the child will begin to develop sexual identity problems. For most boys in the Caribbean and Third World countries, sexual identity in males become a problem in early teenaged years. This can lead to experimentation in the form of simple sexual perversions and can include homosexual experimentation, experimentation with animals and or/with females in the form of molestation and groping of the private areas, or coercing females in their age group to become sexually involved with them. “If these existed and were not noticed, the boy’s sexual urges slipped through the crack of the family safety net,” said Dr Bishop.