Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

De­spite re­peat­ed pleas by her rel­a­tives and friends to end an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship, 42-year-old An­gel Lutch­man stayed. That de­ci­sion end­ed in tragedy yes­ter­day.

The moth­er of two was found with her throat slit and stab wounds about the body in the bed­room of her Pranz Gar­dens, Clax­ton Bay home. Her boyfriend, Shaz­ard Mo­hammed, 29, was found hang­ing next to her.

The grim dis­cov­ery was made by Lutch­man’s 11-year-old son around 7 am, when he re­turned home af­ter spend­ing the night at an aunt’s house.

At the house yes­ter­day, Lutch­man’s old­er broth­er Mark said from the “get-go,” he had told them he could not sup­port their re­la­tion­ship.

Al­though he knew Mo­hammed grow­ing up in the neigh­bour­hood, he said he did not like the gap­ing age dif­fer­ence be­tween them.

Mark de­scribed the re­la­tion­ship as stormy and abu­sive, adding that he had to in­ter­vene on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions.

“This was a poi­son re­la­tion­ship from the be­gin­ning and they nev­er stop. He keep com­ing back. Two of them keep mak­ing up and this is the end prod­uct of this,” he said.

He re­called that at the be­gin­ning of this year, Lutch­man had tak­en out a re­strain­ing or­der against Mo­hammed, but de­spite this, they stayed to­geth­er.

Four months ago, he said Mo­hammed had threat­ened to kill his sis­ter in front of him.

“I came on many oc­ca­sions to try and welch when they have their fall­outs and the last time I came (in Ju­ly), he told me in front of this house, he say, ‘I go­ing to kill your sis­ter, I don’t busi­ness what no po­lice have to say.’ Be­cause the po­lice was look­ing for him. She went and take out a re­strain­ing or­der.”

Mark said he called her then and told her to in­form the po­lice that he was wait­ing un­til they ar­rived to get Mo­hammed to leave the prop­er­ty. How­ev­er, he said his sis­ter got there be­fore the po­lice, re­call­ing, “Both of them went in the back and they spoke. Then, she came back and said, ‘I not go­ing to bring no po­lice in this any­more.’”

Mark said he got up­set with his sis­ter, not­ing the cy­cle con­tin­ued af­ter this in­ci­dent.

“Every time he come here is a fight, he threat­en­ing to kill you, he want to beat you,” he lament­ed, adding that Mo­hammed had even “banned” his sis­ter from talk­ing to her fam­i­ly and friends.

“He want­ed to keep she in a lit­tle bub­ble of his own. She mustn’t go no way and she mustn’t speak to no one.”

He de­scribed his sis­ter as a peo­ple per­son, the “life of the par­ty,” who had many friends.

But he said Mo­hammed was ex­treme­ly jeal­ous and even forced her to leave her jobs.

“He don’t like the fact that a lot of peo­ple want to speak with her so any­where she go she would have to stand by his side and don’t speak to any­one un­til he say speak.”

Mark said he was con­fused as to why his sis­ter stayed in the re­la­tion­ship and even con­sid­ered tak­ing le­gal ac­tion to pre­vent Mo­hammed from en­ter­ing her house.

But, he said, “When they are an adult they say is my life and you can’t tell me how to live it.”

With the trag­ic loss of his sis­ter, how­ev­er, Mark of­fered ad­vice to oth­ers in abu­sive re­la­tion­ships.

“From the time a re­la­tion­ship reach­es a point where there is a lot of phys­i­cal abuse and threats be­ing made, get out of it. Don’t stay, get out of it. Find a safe zone and leave...Once they hit you once they will do it over and over and over. It won’t stop.”

Yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent came less than three weeks af­ter Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress coun­cil­lor Romona Vic­tor, 36, and her com­mon-law hus­band, Rod­ney Ram­sumair, 45, were found dead in their home in an ap­par­ent mur­der-sui­cide. Their bod­ies were dis­cov­ered by Vic­tor’s fa­ther on No­vem­ber 23. An au­top­sy re­vealed Vic­tor died from blunt force trau­ma to the head and neck, while Ram­sumair died from poi­son­ing.

If you are a vic­tim of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or know some­one who may be a vic­tim call: Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Hot­line 800-SAVE (7283); TTPS GBV Unit 555/999/911 What­sApp—482-4279; Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV) 624-0204 (Day), 324-8606 (Night).