Charity girl battling for life after fiery attack

Susana Culpepper, a 17-year-old girl of Charity Ex-tension Housing Scheme is now battling for her life at the Georgetown Public Hospital after she sustained first degree burns in an attack in the wee hours of Saturday.

Her alleged attacker and ex-boyfriend, Kyle Goddette  has escaped police custody and up to press time was on the run.   According to sources, the suspect was arrested and denied the allegations but later admitted to committing the act. A caution statement was taken from him by the police and he was being processed for court tomorrow. However, the suspect escaped custody between Saturday night and early yesterday morning.

Police officers from along the Essequibo Coast were dispatched to the area to assist in recapturing him.

According to information received by this newspaper, Susana was at a male friend’s home a few houses away from where she lives when a `channa bomb’ was thrown through a glass window of the house and landed on the bed where she was.

Speaking with Stabroek News, Cheryl Benn, the mother of Susana said that between 3 to 4 am on Saturday she received a telephone call informing her of the incident.

Susana Culpepper

“Susana was by her friend two houses away from where we living and the boy that was her boyfriend before go into the yard and he pelt something like a channa bomb that make with gasoline through the louvres window that was open and the fire fall on her. She said when she jump up she was covered in fire and the fire was blazing all around her”, the mother related.

After getting the fire under control, the friend who was in the house with Susana at the time managed to get her out of the house and a neighbour rushed her to the Oscar Joseph District Hospital, Charity.

Susana was immediately put on saline and was then transferred to the Suddie Public Hospital then to the Georgetown Public Hospital on Saturday afternoon where she remains a patient in the Burn Unit.

“She get very bad burns from her waist down, her two hands and her face and all over where she get burn swell. She is in a very bad and serious condition and the doctor told me that she can either die or live. He said that he will monitor her for seven days then will see if she improves after the seven days”, the mother said.

Benn said that after her daughter broke off the relationship, her ex-boyfriend was persistently after her trying to mend the relationship.

“She was living with him for a couple months but they separate because he use to ill-treat and beat her and she said she don’t want him back but he keep going after her and now this is what”, happen, the mother lamented.

The police are continuing investigations into the incident.