Trinidad: Young couple killed in early morning car crash

(Trinidad Guardian) Two young lovers died in a car ac­ci­dent in Williamsville yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The love sto­ry of Sta­cy Paul, 17, and Ronald “Pa­pa” De­onar­ine, 21, end­ed trag­i­cal­ly short­ly be­fore 1 am at Garth Road, near Jones Street, not far from their homes. De­onar­ine was dri­ving his grand­fa­ther’s car but did not have a dri­ver’s li­cence. Paul died on the scene, while De­onar­ine died while be­ing treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Dis­traught by the death of his on­ly child, Paul Mathu­ra said his grief was com­pound­ed when he had to run from the ac­ci­dent scene—with his daugh­ter’s body still in the car—af­ter a po­lice of­fi­cer at­tempt­ed to ar­rest him. With tears stream­ing down his face, he said Paul, his on­ly child, left home at around 9 pm but did not say where she was go­ing.

He said a few days ago he ex­pressed con­cern to his daugh­ter about her boyfriend dri­ving with­out a li­cence but she did not lis­ten to him.

Paul, a for­mer stu­dent of Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary School, wrote the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate and was await­ing re­sults. Mathu­ra said he found out about his daugh­ter’s re­la­tion­ship with De­onar­ine three weeks ago, said he spoke to the young man’s par­ents.

When neigh­bours told him his daugh­ter had been in a se­ri­ous ac­ci­dent, Mathu­ra said he hes­i­tat­ed be­fore leav­ing home.

“I want­ed to re­mem­ber her as be­ing jol­ly, my princess,” he said.

When he ar­rived at the scene of the ac­ci­dent, his daugh­ter’s body was still in the back seat. He said it ap­peared as though she had a bro­ken neck.

He com­plained, how­ev­er, that he was treat­ed un­fair­ly and harsh­ly by the po­lice.

“I was hus­tled by the Princes Town po­lice too. I had to run through­out the bush­es. A woman po­lice want­ed to ar­rest me be­cause I was talk­ing. I was say­ing ap­par­ent­ly this guy had no li­cence, how he grand­par­ents al­low him to use this ve­hi­cle. It is some­thing I was puz­zled about and I was ex­press­ing my­self,” he said.

“This woman cor­po­ral come snatch­ing my throat and telling me, ‘You want to spend the night in Princes Town cell griev­ing for your daugh­ter?’ I had to run away all through the bush­es,” he said.

Mathu­ra de­nied that he be­hav­ing in a vi­o­lent or threat­en­ing man­ner. He ad­mit­ted that he stopped us­ing co­caine and al­co­hol in 1993, main­ly be­cause of his daugh­ter who he had been car­ing for on his own since she was six years old. Paul would have cel­e­brat­ed her 18th birth­day in Sep­tem­ber.

About a mile away at De­onar­ine’s home at Jones Street, his sis­ter Ariel, 18, said no one told them how the ac­ci­dent oc­curred. She said when rel­a­tives ar­rived on the scene, De­onar­ine was con­scious and groan­ing in pain. He suf­fered head and in­ter­nal in­juries.

Ariel said the fam­i­ly was not aware that he used to dri­ve the car, but he had about two years of dri­ving ex­pe­ri­ence. His fa­ther used to al­low him to dri­ve.

She said the last time she saw her broth­er alive was around 7 pm at their home. She did not know when he left home or where he went.

She de­scribed her broth­er and his girl­friend as “the best cou­ple” and ex­plained: “They were the hap­pi­est with each oth­er. That is the hap­pi­est I had ever seen my broth­er. All gig­gles, all laughs, they nev­er ar­gued, they were al­ways good. They went meant to be to­geth­er.”

De­onar­ine, the third of four sib­lings, left school ear­ly was not per­ma­nent­ly em­ployed and was work­ing on get­ting his dri­ver’s per­mit.

“He was try­ing to go along a pos­i­tive road and live a pos­i­tive life,” she said.