A chopping incident which left a 49-year-old Point Fortin woman in critical condition was the culmination of years of physical and mental abuse, said relatives. Although a suspect has been held, Debbi Maude-Antoine, who received multiple chop wounds, one of which fractured her skull, remains fearful that her attacker will be released and come after her again.
Up to late yesterday, the 55-year-old suspect, a security guard, was not charged. Maude-Antoine, a mother of three and grandmother of three, remained warded in a critical, but stable, condition at the San Fernando General Hospital. Detectives were expected to visit her at the hospital to take a statement from her yesterday.
Speaking with the T&T Guardian, Dinell Maude-Garcia said her sister had been living in fear since she moved out of her matrimonial home at Lime Field Road, Bonasse Village, Cedros, seven years ago. She was married for 30 years and her children range in age from 23 to 25 years old. “Is years of constant physical and mental torture she going through.”
For years she kept the abuse a secret, but about five years ago she started confiding in her relatives about the abuse. And last April, Maude-Antonie took out a restraining order against the suspect. “She made multiple reports to the police. He would stalk her house.” Recalling the incident, she said the suspect got to her sister’s home at Southern Gardens, Point Fortin, around 4.45 pm. “He was stalking the house.”
She said her sister, who works two jobs as a security officer and a cleaner, was entering a vehicle they hired to pick her up and take her to work when the suspect approached in another vehicle and attacked her.
“She (Maude-Antoine) said she saw the vehicle but because of the speed the vehicle was coming she could not have run. So, he bounced her with the vehicle...the vehicle literally crossed a canal, and she was pinned against a neighbour’s wall. He exited the vehicle and rain multiple chops to her. She received injuries to her face, her hand, her back and two chops to her head, one of the chops fractured her skull.”
Maude-Garcia said when she got to the scene, she was told that the suspect ran away and villagers had chased after him. “When I went and saw the condition of my sister all I ask is for assistance to put her into my vehicle.” She took her sister to the Point Fortin Area Hospital and she was then transferred to the San Fernando General Hospital. She said a team of ten doctors, including specialists, had to work on her sister because she also had severe injuries to her nose and hand.
“It was really horrible.” Two days before the incident, she said, the man called a pastor and told him that he had cutlasss and “everything to do the job.” Recalling several incidents where her sister was physically abused and even abducted, she said: “She is so afraid in the hospital. She studying when he come out he will come for her. She is so fearful because he always threatening and threatening.”
She said many times her sister would hide out at her home. Only one of Maude-Antoine’s children lives with her, but she was not home at the time of the incident. Investigations are continuing.