Natalie Loncke of Lot 9 Norton Street, Wortmanville succumbed to two stab wounds to her head about fifteen minutes after being rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital in an unconscious state. Hospital sources told this newspaper that the doctors worked really hard on Loncke but she was bleeding profusely from one of the wounds. She was a mother of two and a teacher at the Selman Fraser Nursery School in Albouystown.
Her daughter Renatha Craig sustained a small bruise to the left side of her face and was receiving treatment at the same institution last night. Her wound is not life threatening, hospital sources said.
When Stabroek News arrived at the hospital around 6.30 pm, the two women had already arrived. A teary-eyed Craig was sitting on a bench being hugged by two relatives. Loncke was already in the treatment room.
Around five minutes later screams filled the waiting area of the emergency room as word spread that Loncke had died.
Craig was inconsolable and was unable to speak to members of the media.
Recounting what had transpired, the dead woman’s upstairs neighbour, Patricia Abrams, said it was “minutes to five” when she heard Loncke and her “lover” arguing.
Adams said Loncke was preparing to take her four-year-old daughter for an afternoon ride. Stabroek News was later told that the child was later taken to another house nearby and did not witness the stabbing.
”I hearing the impact on the window, me ain‘t know it suh serious then I hear he say ‘yuh juk me pun me lip,’” Adams recalled.
The woman said Loncke’s elder daughter (Craig) was home at the time of the attack and tried to intervene. She was apparently hit by the man and “she come in the yard crying”.
Loncke lived in a bottom-flat apartment which is located behind two other houses at the Norton Street address.
Adams, who lives upstairs, said she did not hear anything else after the older daughter walked into the yard crying. It is unclear at what point Loncke was stabbed.
Adams said she was standing at her window with her baby in her arms, when she saw Loncke’s attacker exit the apartment, jump on his bicycle and start to leave the yard. However, halfway out of the yard, she said, the man turned around and went back inside the house once more before leaving for good.
“Is the girl crying in the yard alarm everybody to come,” Adams said adding that when she rushed downstairs and into Loncke’s home she saw her lying in her bedroom bleeding. “Me husband just come home and was going to park the vehicle and he tek she to the hospital,” said Adams.
Loncke was bleeding excessively, the neighbour said, pointing out that onlookers thought that she was already dead.
Two police in “black clothes” showed up and examined the house before leaving, she said.
According to Adams, the attacker was apparently intoxicated at the time of the incident. She recalled that the couple had an argument about a week ago.
Loncke, she said, had told the man that she wanted to end the relationship with him, adding that the sudden passing of the woman has shocked her.
Steady quarrels
Shocked relatives and friends told this newspaper last evening at the hospital that the couple quarrelled often but they were not aware of it escalating to violence. A relative said that they had been together “for a few months”.
According to reports reaching this newspaper the suspect was incarcerated before for brutalizing a woman.
Loncke’s niece, Felicia, said Craig went running to her with the side of her face bleeding. She said she did not go into the yard which was by this time filled with people.
Felicia said she collected Craig and her four-year-old sister and Craig told her that the suspect was armed with a knife and that he had hit her across the face with a bar.
Shortly after, Craig ran out of the house, she said, the suspect was spotted riding out of the yard.
A sobbing Felicia said that from the position in hich Loncke was lying it looked as though blood was pouring from her neck but they later learnt that it was coming from her head.
She said that a policeman was on the scene fairly soon after, but was outside shouting for someone to get the ambulance.
Felicia remembered her aunt as a very jovial person stating that “she would represent herself’ if she had to.
This newspaper was later told that the suspect had pulled a knife on a man who had tried to approach him during the quarrel.
Meanwhile, a distraught Narmattie Inderpaul called Geeta said that she had worked with Loncke for 13 years. Between sobs, the woman said Loncke was to visit her around 4 pm yesterday but never turned up.
She said the couple had an “in and out relationship” and “always had a problem”.
Another woman who said she and Loncke were like sisters stated that despite many invitations she had not visited her friend for the year.
With regret and distress evident in her voice, the woman said she had spoken with Loncke on the telephone often, but was always too tired to visit her.
Earlier, the woman could be heard wailing that she had not seen her friend for the year and now she has to see her dead. On hearing of the incident, the woman ran to the hospital after she couldn’t get transportation.
The dead woman’s mother tried to maintain her composure but broke down after viewing her daughter’s body in the treatment room.
Loncke is the second nursery school teacher in as many months to have died allegedly at the hands of their partners.
Shaunell Warrick died one month after being badly beaten allegedly by her on-and-off companion on New Year’s Day.
Warrick, a mother of two and a teacher at the East Street Nursery School, sustained a fractured skull during a beating on New Year’s Day. Her partner Rudolph London, who has since been charged, allegedly used a cutlass to inflict the blows on the woman.
Days before her demise, Warrick was moved to the High Dependency Unit from the Intensive Care Unit after regaining consciousness. Although not able to speak, she communicated by shaking her head. She had been in a critical condition from the day she was admitted but clung to life for more than four weeks. (Additional reporting by Tiffny Rhodius)
