Sascha Wil­son

Walk­ing, cook­ing, house­hold chores or even gar­den­ing are ac­tiv­i­ties that posed no trou­ble for pen­sion­er Util­da Joseph fond­ly called Aun­ty Til­da. She would have turned 97 years old to­day, clos­er to the big 100, some­thing she was look­ing for­ward to.

But, that was not to be. Last month, she was at­tacked and stran­gled at her Quar­ry Vil­lage, Siparia home.

The on­ly things stolen from her home were her bank book and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, her great-nephew Joseph “Carv­er” Thomp­son said her ab­sence in their life has left a som­bre empti­ness.

Re­call­ing that he would have spent her last four con­sec­u­tive birth­day’s with her, ei­ther at his home or hers, he re­mem­bered how every year she would say that she did not want to cel­e­brate her birth­day.

“But, that did not stop me from do­ing it. Last year we had a lit­tle get to­geth­er home by her. She had a cake. She was just hap­py to be alive. She was look­ing for­ward to mak­ing 100 plus be­cause she was phys­i­cal­ly healthy apart from a hear­ing im­ped­i­ment.”

Had she not been mur­dered, he be­lieves would have joined the cen­te­nar­i­an com­mu­ni­ty.

Thomp­son said to­day he would be at his home flood­ed with mem­o­ries of his greataunt and drink­ing Vod­ka.

“She would take a drink of Vod­ka on her birth­day. So I will be tak­ing a shot of Vod­ka for her. I’ll have two glass­es one for me and one for her. It’s just I will be drink­ing the two.”

While no one has been charged, he said the po­lice had shown pho­tographs of three sus­pects to the vil­lagers.

Re­cent­ly, he said one of Joseph’s neigh­bours found a man sleep­ing in their house and the per­pe­tra­tor ran off. He wasn’t sure if that per­son was ever con­sid­ered some­one of in­ter­est in his great aunt’s mur­der. Joseph had one child, a son, who died from can­cer four years ago at the age of 74. She lived alone in a wood­en house in an un­der­de­vel­oped area at Hillview Lane. The house had no elec­tric­i­ty. She would have had to walk through a track to get to and from her home. She was last seen alive by a neigh­bour who left her home around 3 pm on May 16.

Her body was dis­cov­ered on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon when neigh­bour Di­anne Paul got wor­ried af­ter she did not see her in her usu­al spot in the ham­mock un­der her house. Po­lice said Joseph’s wrist was tied tight­ly with a piece of cloth while her oth­er hand was un­der the area of her back. Her mouth had blood­stains. Po­lice be­lieve that her killer re­moved three lou­vre panes and crawled in­to her house. Con­sid­ered a moth­er­ly fig­ure in the com­mu­ni­ty, her mur­der has left a void in the vil­lage.

“She was a very help­ful car­ing per­son. Every­one in the vil­lage where she lived loved her. She mind al­most all the chil­dren in the area. Those par­ents who had to go work and had no one to see their chil­dren they would drop their kids by her. She was kind, al­ways giv­ing. Most im­por­tant­ly, my great aunt was very in­de­pen­dent and strong for her age.” Last Ju­ly, Joseph was ho­n­oured by the Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­istry for be­ing the old­est per­son in the com­mu­ni­ty. Al­lud­ing to the re­cent mur­der of cul­tur­al icon Tor­rance Mo­hammed, Thomp­son said he was sad­dened by the fre­quent at­tacks on se­nior cit­i­zens in the coun­try.

“What hap­pen is a lot of peo­ple are los­ing re­spect for se­nior cit­i­zens and those are the ones who have paved the way for us. In­stead of help­ing an el­der­ly per­son cross the street they at­tack­ing them and grab­bing their bag.”

Call­ing on those who car­ry out these heinous acts to stop, he said, “I want to make an ap­peal to re­spect el­der­ly, re­spect our se­nior cit­i­zens. We are all go­ing to get old one day and we don’t know what sit­u­a­tion we will be in.”

An au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre re­vealed that she man­u­al­ly stran­gled.

Her fu­ner­al took place on April 24 at the Uni­verse RC Church in Quar­ry Vil­lage.