Woman murdered in Tobago

Crystal Tobias-Busby, a midwife at the Scarborough General Hospital, was stabbed multiple times in an incident which shocked the sleepy fishing village where she lived. The mother of one lived at King Street in Plymouth. When Newsday visited yesterday, the victim’s adopted mother Leiba Matthews-Julien said she was awakened by screams coming from the house at 3 am.

“It was the mother of Crystal Tobias Busby, screaming and calling for us to call an ambulance.

So I ran up the road and when I arrived at the house, I see Crystal sitting at the porch drenched in blood. When I asked what happened, I was told that a man who was close to her climbed through a window and stabbed her up as she lay in bed.

I immediately compressed some of the wounds and the neighbour Jason Drysdale also assisted in compressing some of the other wounds to stop the bleeding until the ambulance arrived,” Matthews- Julien said.

“While we we compressing the wounds, she was still in and out of consciousness and when the ambulance arrived, I accompanied her to the hospital and while there the doctors tried with her, they stabilised her, everything seemed fair, like she was going to make it. One of the stab wounds had punctured her lungs so there was internal bleeding, they did all they could do and then she took a turn for the worst and she pass ed away at 6:30,” she said.

Police said that the victim’s son who was asleep in the house at the time of the attack, was unharmed.

“She had a restraining order against that man. Many reports have been made to the police about his behavious towards her,” Mathews-Julien said. The victim had been in a relationship with the suspect for six years but ended the relationship when he abused her. Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Secretary of Health and Social Services Claudia Groome Duke visited the family and offered condolences as well as a promise of counselling.

An autopsy is to be conducted before funeral arrangements are made.

In the interim, investigations are continuing.