(By Mondale Smith and Jenelle Carter)
The lives of two baby girls, aged two years and
four months have forever been altered. Their
mother is dead with multiple stabs and chop wounds
about her body, allegedly inflicted by their
father who has gone into hiding.
Yesterday, the deafening screams of “Help!
Murder, Help” by a woman at 15 Ketley Street,
Charlestown, about 1:30 hrs disturbed the
night’s silence of many in the environs.
Seconds later, Okemo Akeme Todd, 21, plunged
through the window of the building in which she
lived, blood spurting from her body. Her attacker,
said to be Charles Rawlins, was allegedly in hot
pursuit.
Clad only in her brassiere and a half slip, her
desperate escape took her over a heavily padlocked
zinc fence that she would normally have had
difficulty scaling.
She then ran across the street and climbed over
the Ketley Primary School gate that stands more
than seven feet high to seek refuge in the
School’s guard hut.
So severe were her injuries that her only words as
blood spewed from her body were
“Guardie…please help me, help.”
Her voice soon faded as she crumpled to her knees.
Eventually she was flat on the concrete. The guard
ran to her assistance and as he tried to keep her
conscious he saw what he termed death in its
agonising and horrifying form staring in his eyes.
He was helpless and in disbelief that the woman
who often hailed out to him now lay dying with
blood flowing from her mouth.
Hours after the horrifying ordeal the still aghast
guard stared at the blood-stained gateway that
leads to his hut as he recalled the story.
He said that in a minute that seemed like a
horrifying eternity he saw a GDF soldier who was
passing, rush to the woman’s aid and assisted in
transporting her to the hospital. There he got the
news that she was dead. The soldier has not been
able to eat any food since.
Her body bore more than twenty stabs and cuts.
Several of them were at her back. At the hospital,
her four-month-old had blood spattered on the face
while the two-year-old reported that “daddy beat
mommy”.
From all reports, both were present and witnessed
the attack that has left them void of a mother to
embrace and care.
Police recovered a bicycle and a pair of footwear
in a yard next door. These are believed to be the
killer’s. It is believed, too, that the killer
entered and exited by prying open a zinc fence
aback of the yard and gaining access to the shack.
When this publication visited the scene, Cicely,
the mother of the alleged killer who shared the
shack with Todd was at her wits end as she stood
amidst scattered clothing in the hut, next to a
bloodstained bed.
The woman cried and shook her head in disbelief.
“I don’t know what could have caused this. Why
he do this to she, why, why,” she said. As far
as she was aware her son left her home on
Thursday. She said that he had called her from
Suriname en-route to Cayenne. “Me daughter-in
law had me phone so he used to call she and we
talk up to Saturday but we ain’t know he was
here in Guyana,” the woman said.
Reports are that the man had returned and was
monitoring Todd’s movements for a few days.
Some say that the man who was extremely jealous
and possessive of Todd was seen in the area and
may have been ticked off by the children being
allegedly left alone in the shack while she went
out and returned at about 1:00 hr yesterday.
Some reported hearing heated arguments before the
woman screamed for help but his mother could not
confirm or deny any of these reports.
Holding up part of a Mashramani costume, she
recalled that her daughter-in-law was among the
mash revellers and said they had gone shopping at
about 11:45 hrs on Sunday and all was well.
“I send she home with the stuff and I did not
come home till today (about 5: 30) and was greeted
by this,” the woman said.
Partly hanging outside the window of the hut
was a pink blood stained mosquito net while across
the road evidence of dried blood was seen atop the
School’s gate and droplets in the guard hut.
The guard said that he did see her come in crying
for help. “I ask she what happen and she
collapsed. She tried to say something to me but
all that came out she mouth was blood…blood was
everywhere.
Okema Todd and her assailant had shared a
tumultuous relationship that saw the woman leaving
the shack on many occasions to seek shelter at her
mother’s home in East La Penitence.
Neighbours recalled rescuing the abused woman on
many occasions from the blows of her reputed
husband.
“He de break up she fingers before and bung up
she face but the two of them always end-up back
together,” one neighbour said. She was supported
by others.
The man, a former boxer who served prison time for
killing another man in the Stabroek market area
about 12 years ago according to law enforcement
authorities, was known for a violent temper.
Some in the boxing fraternity said that he was a
good boxer with much promise but because of his
temper he was let go.
The dead woman’s older sister said that because
of the abuse the victim was back at her mother’s
in East La Penitence home up until the day before
Valentine’s Day when she went back to her child
father’s shack with encouragement from her
mother-in-law.
Neighbours reported that they saw him dressed in a
pair of blue jeans and wearing a haversack
observing the scene from a distance. They said
that they watched him walk away after the woman
was removed from the scene.
The woman’s sister said that the two often
fought and that her sister had relayed that “he
always used to say he gon murder she and he
finally did. We hearing that he gone to Suriname
but we advising he to come back and tell we the
reason why he did it,” she said.
Tuesday,
March 02, 2010