MONSTER KILLED REHANNA

“Ma, anytime you find me dead is the monster who kill me,” Ali said to Gafoor, at about 4.30 pm, Sunday at the family home in Siparia.

Two days later, Ali was dead, the victim of a brutal chopping attack at the hands of a male relative. It was a horrific, almost predictable end, to eight years of abuse, Ali’s family mourned yesterday.

Ali, a victim of domestic violence, seemed to prepare her closest relatives, Gafoor, 47, her stepfather Krishna Dookie, 47, and sister Sheriffa Jokhan, 20, for the worst.

It was about 5 pm on Tuesday, when Ali, who once worked as a waitress, was found dead. Her head was almost severed. Police believed she was killed after preparing lunch for a male relative to take to work.

Yesterday, Gafoor recalled her last conversation with her daughter who said who would be her killer, if she was found murdered.

Gafoor said although her daughter was abused it was difficult for her to leave her abuser.

“He used to ill-treat her but she couldn’t leave him. He will find her where ever she tried to hide. I encouraged her to come and live close to me so I could keep an eye on her but still I couldn’t protect my child from the monster,” wept Gafoor.

Gafoor believes the man would have killed Ali one way or the other, even if she had left him.

The man had so much anger that he recently poisoned the family’s dogs and cats because he felt the animals “didn’t like him,” relatives told Newsday. A 48-year-old construction worker, who also drove his car for private hire, is now in police custody for questioning about the murder. The weapon believed to be a cutlass has not been found. Police report the man claimed he found Ali dead in a one-room apartment at Spring Trace, Quarry Village, Siparia. Reports indicate the man raised an alarm and called out to her step-father. Ali’s family lived about 150 feet from her apartment.

“Come and see what Rehanna (Ali) do?” the man reportedly said.

Ali’s right hand, which police believe she raised to stop a blow to her neck, was hanging only by a piece of flesh, Newsday was told.

“I couldn’t believe it, she was lying there in a pool of blood, her hand just hanging by a piece of flesh, her neck almost chopped off. Pieces of her long hair was cut too and stuck in the blood. I rushed to her and touched her thinking it had just happened but she was cold and stiff almost already turning blue,” Dookie, Ali’s step-father, said yesterday.

“If I didn’t have a strong heart, I would have collapsed and died. The man stood there looking at her and crying saying, ‘Rehanna what you do that for, ent you know I love you’.”

Relatives said the suspect had always threatened to kill Ali before she turned 30.

Two years ago, Ali took out a restraining order against the violent man, but she returned to the relationship. The man had stopped her from working and she could only go out when he took her out.

When she last spoke to her family on Sunday, Ali told them the man had beaten her on Saturday night.

“Her face was swollen where he slapped her several times. I beg her to come here and live. I promised to build a downstairs and she could live there only to get away from him, but she was afraid to leave,” Dookie said.

At one time, she stopped telling them of the abuse and often hid, but the signs were still evident.

“We would call out to her every day when we passing to make sure all was well. She was a prisoner inside the house. She would peep through the curtain when we call her out,” Gafoor said. She said the man prevented Ali from visiting her family, and he always told her that “we didn’t like her or care for her.”

Dookie said, on Tuesday, when she was called to see her daughter, at a first glimpse, she thought Ali had slit her wrist.

“But what I saw was horrible, her hand was hanging by a piece of skin and he nearly chop off her neck,” she cried. Relatives said Ali’s bed was well made and she had prepared lunch for the suspect to take to work leading them to believe she got up at 4 am as she did every day.

Gaffoor said Ali and the man kept moving from apartment to apartment and that’s when she begged her daughter to live on a piece of land next door to the family home.

“I was afraid for her because I know what was happening,” Gafoor said.

Reports of the domestic abuse were made to the Siparia Police Station.

“He often told us that he would kill her and cut off her head and bring it and put it on the table. He would go up and point his finger in her face and say, ‘I would kill you girl’ and then he would laugh out loud,” Gafoor said. “One day I had to intervene when he kept telling her how he could get men to rape and kill her. He was like her pimp making her dress up and go out and lime, people would buy drinks for them and then he will come home and beat her.”

Dookie said the man always accused Ali of being unfaithful but said that was not true.

“She couldn’t even own a phone because he would take it and mash it up. If we gave her jewelry he will mash it up. Anytime her mother buy jewelry for her sister Sheriffa, she would buy for her, but he always felt it was a man,” he said.

Dookie said the man always kept three sharp cutlasses at his house and that the longest and sharpest has gone missing.

A party of officers including Snr Supt Lewis, Supt Ramlal, Ag ASP Pardassie and Insp Seedarie responded to a report of Ali’s murder, on Tuesday. Cpl Haynes is continuing investigations.

Yesterday Gender, Youth and Child Development Minister Marlene Coudray issued an appeal to women to get out of abusive situations.

“Get them away, that is one step that will help. Do not tolerate abuse, safeguard yourself and relatives. Anyone you know in an abusive situation try and protect them from that because you never know when it could turn fatal,” Coudray said.

Coudray’s own daughter was murdered in Jamaica last year.

She said many women were afraid of the men and stay in the relationship.

“They go back into it and meet their deaths,” she went on to say. “I don’t know how we can impress upon women not to take chances with their lives.”

Coudray said her ministry is working towards establishing more safe-houses for women.

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