Ea­ger to be re­unit­ed with her two daugh­ters, a 45-year-old Vista­bel­la woman ex­pressed re­lief and grat­i­tude af­ter be­ing re­leased from po­lice cus­tody four days af­ter she con­fessed to fa­tal­ly shoot­ing busi­ness­man Steve Ghany Jr in what she claims was self-de­fence.

The woman walked out of the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion short­ly af­ter mid­day yes­ter­day, ac­com­pa­nied by her at­tor­ney, Prakash Ra­mad­har. Her re­lease fol­lowed a meet­ing be­tween le­gal of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard.

Speak­ing with CNC3 News, Ra­mad­har said his client was re­lieved and fo­cused on re­turn­ing home to her chil­dren.

“There are no charges laid at this time. There is no in­quiry, no tri­bunal or any­thing of that sort. She has been re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” he said.

He added: “She is re­lieved at her lib­er­ty, and she ex­press­es grat­i­tude to those who reached out to her and her fam­i­ly. She will be seek­ing help to deal with the trau­ma she has en­dured, not on­ly from Wednes­day but from pri­or to that as well.”

Ra­mad­har al­so said a press con­fer­ence will be held to ad­dress wider con­cerns sur­round­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. He thanked in­ves­ti­ga­tors and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, say­ing he hoped lessons could be learned from the in­ci­dent.

The woman had been un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion in con­nec­tion with the killing of 37-year-old Ghany along Alexan­der Street, Vista­bel­la, last Wednes­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a shoot­ing-in-progress call from the E999 Com­mand Cen­tre short­ly af­ter 9 am. On ar­rival, they were met by the woman, who told of­fi­cers she had shot the man in self-de­fence.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were told the in­ci­dent fol­lowed a vi­o­lent al­ter­ca­tion that al­leged­ly be­gan around 2.30 am af­ter the man re­turned home. What start­ed as an ar­gu­ment re­port­ed­ly es­ca­lat­ed in­to hours of phys­i­cal abuse.

The woman told po­lice the or­deal con­tin­ued in­to the morn­ing and cul­mi­nat­ed around 8.30 am in an up­stairs bed­room. She al­leged that dur­ing the con­fronta­tion, the man drew one of his li­censed firearms and fired at her, but missed.

Fear­ing for her life, she re­port­ed­ly seized an­oth­er legal­ly owned firearm and dis­charged mul­ti­ple shots, fa­tal­ly wound­ing him.

When of­fi­cers en­tered the bed­room, they found the man ly­ing on the floor with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds. A dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer lat­er pro­nounced him dead at the scene.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered two li­censed pis­tols—a Glock 19 and a Sig Sauer—along with 11 spent 9mm shells and oth­er bal­lis­tic ev­i­dence. Po­lice con­firmed the de­ceased was the hold­er of a firearm user’s li­cence for the weapons.

As part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the woman’s hands were swabbed for gun­shot residue and her cloth­ing seized. She al­so un­der­went med­ical ex­am­i­na­tions.

In her state­ment, she claimed that dur­ing the in­ci­dent, threats were made against her life and the lives of her two daugh­ters, aged four and nine, who were at home at the time.

Po­lice sources said in­ves­ti­ga­tors are al­so ex­am­in­ing re­ports that she had been liv­ing in fear for years amid al­le­ga­tions of a pat­tern of abuse that caused her to with­draw from rel­a­tives and friends.– RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA