Sascha Wil­son

“These men are de­mon. They don’t have no God in them,” lament­ed the grand­moth­er of 15-month-old Sari­ah Williams, who was fa­tal­ly chopped by a rel­a­tive dur­ing a do­mes­tic dis­pute on Sun­day night.

Bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly from a chop wound to her head, ba­by Sari­ah died min­utes lat­er while un­der­go­ing emer­gency treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

“I blame my­self be­cause I should ah put a stop to this and stop for­giv­ing and for­giv­ing. If I put a stop, my grand­child would ah be alive,” said grand­moth­er Michelle Williams, 50, dur­ing an in­ter­view at her Sion Dri­ve, Tar­o­dale, Ste Madeleine, home yes­ter­day.

Blood­stains were still vis­i­ble in the gallery of the house where the ba­by was chopped, as well as on the steps lead­ing to the yard and road.

Point­ing to scars on her body, Williams, a moth­er of sev­en, spoke about en­dur­ing 24 years of abuse by the rel­a­tive.

She had planned to go to the mag­is­trates’ court yes­ter­day and ap­ply for a pro­tec­tion or­der, but tragedy struck on Sun­day night.

Williams, a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer, re­called that she had fin­ished work­ing a 6 am to 6 pm shift and met Sari­ah’s moth­er, Niki­ta, and her eight chil­dren at her home.

Niki­ta had cur­ry-cue ear­li­er that day to raise funds to pur­chase tablet de­vices and school sup­plies for her chil­dren– the el­dest is 14 years old.

Know­ing that her daugh­ter would have been in the heat cook­ing all day, she of­fered to wash the wares be­cause she was con­cerned that her daugh­ter could get a stroke.

How­ev­er, Williams said the rel­a­tive start­ed curs­ing her and com­plain­ing that she was al­low­ing her chil­dren to use her.

Williams and her daugh­ter then sat down in the gallery with Sari­ah on Williams’ lap. But, as the rel­a­tive con­tin­ued rant­i­ng, her daugh­ter told him to stop quar­relling and go to bed.

How­ev­er, Williams said he went in­side and then came back out with a speed.

“He just fly out with a blade. I ent even see when he fly out through the draw­ing-room and in­to the gallery. He just start to chop the ba­by. She get chop in her head and blood start to flow and she was on­ly black­ing out,” she said.

She said her daugh­ter grabbed Sari­ah and dove to the ground try­ing to shield her (Sari­ah) with her body. The sus­pect, she said, just kept fir­ing chops.

“He keep com­ing so I had to go over them and brakes and that’s how I get my two fin­gers chop and when he com­ing again, I brakes with my right hand,” she said.

By this time, rel­a­tives and neigh­bours were run­ning up the steps of their home to their res­cue.

Williams said the rel­a­tive ran in­to a room and locked the door un­til the po­lice ar­rived.

Re­call­ing how she rushed out of the house with her bleed­ing grand­daugh­ter, she said, “The child was on­ly black­ing out. The child could not even cry be­cause blood was on­ly flow­ing from she head.”

A neigh­bour took the ba­by and her moth­er to the hos­pi­tal and on the way, they flagged down a pass­ing po­lice ve­hi­cle and told them what tran­spired.

When the po­lice got there and were es­cort­ing the sus­pect to the po­lice ve­hi­cle, Williams said rel­a­tives and friends at­tacked him, forc­ing the po­lice to use pep­per spray to keep them at bay.

She re­called that years ago, she had made a re­port and took out a re­strain­ing or­der but then she for­gave him.

How­ev­er, Williams said the vi­o­lence did not stop.

Williams added, “He bite off meh hand some years. He stab me here (show­ing a scar on her shoul­der). I for­give he be­cause when you go­ing to church they tell you to for­give them but they don’t change.”

She con­tin­ued, “Is slap down. He kick me with boots, knock me out. He throws pitch oil on me. He throw thin­ners on my daugh­ter. He try to light me on fire. All these things I go­ing through but you know I had a kind of fear be­cause he have a kind of bad mind.”

Williams be­lieves that he was plan­ning the at­tack be­cause over the last week, he had threat­ened to kill her and her chil­dren and hours be­fore the dead­ly at­tack, he al­so sent her a pic­ture of him­self hold­ing a cut­lass.

Re­gret­ting that she did not seek help soon­er, she urged oth­er women who are be­ing abused to go to the po­lice.

“As you hear a man abus­ing you, go to the po­lice sta­tion. You will get coun­selling, talk the truth, tell them every­thing, don’t be like me, I was a cow­ard,” she said.

De­scrib­ing her grand­daugh­ter as a lov­ing child, she said Sari­ah loved to eat, laugh and run.

“She was full of love, a beau­ti­ful child,” she added.

Williams’ moth­er Mer­le Williams said she had begged her daugh­ter to go to the po­lice.

“I told her I don’t have no mon­ey for fu­ner­al,” Mer­le lament­ed.

An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done lat­er this week at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre pend­ing a COVID-19 test.

Mean­while, the sus­pect, who was born in Guyana but came to came to this coun­try as a ba­by, re­mains in po­lice cus­tody.

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.