The wounds of a Rosignol, West Coast Berbice woman are slowly healing but the horror of watching her daughter being brutally butchered two months ago will remain with her forever.
Rolene Alexander, 44, had her fingers on her left hand punctured with a fork before being slashed about the body with a chopper. Her daughter, 24-year-old Trevlyn Nicholson’s life was cold-bloodedly snuffed out right before her eyes.
Alexander was rushed to the Fort Wellington Hospital for treatment and later transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
She said her daughter was buried the following week and “me force meself to feel strong just to come home and see she. Me de want see she. She look white; she ain’t had no blood…,” Alexander lamented.
She told this newspaper from her Jarvis Street home on Monday last week that she had been looking forward to the Christmas season, but her plans have been replaced by misery and loss. “This year me ain’t gat Christmas but God deh. If I live to see the day I would say thank God.”
She is taking care of Trevlyn’s six-year-old son, Shemmar Calvin Simon and even if she were willing to buy him presents and goodies for the holidays she cannot afford to do so. She is also finding it hard to provide the child with basic items.
While filling her life with joy, the child is also a constant reminder of her daughter, who “would cook for me birthday [in January] and call me by she and buy something for me.”
During the interview, the child received money to buy a treat. He went to the shop next door and returned with a small chocolate and a packet of cheese sticks and insisted that his grandmother take the chocolate and a few of the cheese sticks before he sat down to enjoy the rest.
Shemmar who turned six on December 2, was accustomed to his mother inviting his friends and having a party for his birthday. This year, Alexander said, she received a little help from a relative “to cook and call some children just to mek him happy”.
She is disturbed at the fact that while she was hospitalized, relatives removed her daughter’s belongings including clothing, wardrobe, gas stove, bed and mattress as well as her grandson’s clothing, school bag with books and his toys from the house and have not given her anything.
She said the only clothes the child has are a few items that she had at her house for him. At this point, Shemmar butted in, “I had nuff new clothes and them tek all. Now me only gat old clothes; them tek all me toys too.”
A Grade One student of the Cotton Tree Primary, the child got a bag, books and pencils from residents to return to school. Alexander needs a wardrobe for him but is not sure if she would be able to acquire one on hire purchase.
She last worked as a security guard but “me feelings ain’t nice to go back to work yet.” Besides, she is unable to use her wounded fingers.
Her husband also works as a guard but his meagre salary is barely enough to pay bills and run the house. He also works part-time with a huckster to supplement his income but he now has to take care of his sick mother as well.
With tears streaming down her cheeks during the interview, she said her life would never be the same again. “Every time ah turn and remember she ah does cry. If me din went there and see was something else. Me stand up and see everything how she get she dead and it can’t come out of me.” It hurts her even more when the child would say he wants to go to his mother.
She said her daughter met her demise following an argument with her husband, Andy Nicholson on October 17 over a text message that was sent to his phone.
Before that, Alexander who had returned to her daughter’s house at D’ Edward Village after taking Shemmar to the health centre, said her son-in-law left to go to Cotton Tree school with a fork to assist his brother with some work.
Her daughter had gone to the seaside to check on their cows and when her husband returned home and learnt that she was there he went in search of her. A few minutes later she got a message that he was beating her and she went and brought her home.
Andy followed them and attempted to plunge the fork into Trevlyn but Alexander jumped between them the fork connected with three fingers on her left hand. The enraged man then reached for a chopper and dealt Alexander the wounds which she said affect her badly whenever it rains.
As this was happening, her daughter took the opportunity to run out of the yard and through a short alleyway. Her husband pursued her after grabbing a cutlass. By the time she crossed a bridge and reached on the dam she could not run anymore and fell. And never got up again.
With blood trickling from her wounds, especially one on her right temple, Alexander, too, screamed for mercy. She was also concerned that the man would turn the weapon on his stepson who witnessed the entire ordeal.
The distressed mother said she watched helplessly from a resident’s yard and listened to her daughter pleading for life with every chop until she took her last breath.
The attacker then calmly walked away with the murder weapon before starting to run as he was halfway towards the sea-dam.
The following day he surrendered in the company of his lawyer. He has been placed on remand will return to the Blairmont Court on February 2, 2009.
