Mother choked to death in bed

A PENAL mother of two who had received several death threats in recent weeks, was found dead yesterday just hours after receiving a “message” from a close relative. Investiga-tors believe 31-year-old nursing student Emily Gould was suffocated in her bed while her two children slept nearby. Detectives are trying to determine whether Gould’s death was a “hit” called by a close relative who is incarcerated at Golden Grove. Police were told the relative had been sending threats to her through “messengers”, the last of which came hours before she died. Her friends described Gould’s relationship with the close male relative as “obsessive.”

“He did not want her to talk to anyone, go out anywhere or even laugh. He had been threatening her for sometime and this is the result now,” a relative told Sunday Newsday. The killing rocked the quiet community of Sunrees Road, Penal, where Gould lived downstairs of her mother’s house. Police said they are treating the case as a homicide but are awaiting the results of the autopsy to confirm the cause of death. The only marks discovered on the body were a few scrapes on her forearms. Gould’s mother, Ingrid, was at the market in Penal when she got the tragic news that her only daughter was dead. She said she last saw her daughter around 10 pm Friday. “Last night a man came and delivered a message to her but I don’t know anything about that. She washed her clothes, then closed her door. I heard the radio playing loud but when I wake up about three o’clock I wasn’t hearing it, so I thought she sleeping.”

Police were told at around 9 am Gould’s seven-year-old daughter Afiya and three year-old son Akeem tried to wake up their mother. When they could not, they went to the neighbours to get help. Haricharan Sookram, 22, said said he got an uneasy feeling when the door to Gould’s apartment was found open and her cellular phone could not be found. He said, “The children said they took a pillow off the mother face and ‘chooking’ her to try to wake she up but she was not moving. Then they called out my mother-in-law and me to see why Emily not getting up. I went in the room and I shake the body but it was cold.

“She never left the door open. She always made sure it was closed and her place was secure because she had two little children.” Gould herself was released from prison last November after serving a six-week term for possession of cocaine. After her release, she began studying nursing and worked with CEPEP. District Medical Officer Dr Bhimsingh visited the scene and ordered the removal of the body to the Forensic Science Centre. Also visiting the scene yesterday were ASP Christopher, Sgts Innis, Minors and Wahid Ali, and PCs Nemai and Reid. Investigations are continuing.