“She was a loving, kind and caring person, she was everything a mother could ask for,” Tejwattie Jinkoo better known as Sharda said as she described her dead daughter, 21-year-old Omwattie Gill known as Anjalie.
Gill’s life was taken in a gruesome manner on March 30; her husband allegedly struck her down and then used a cutlass and a hammer to inflict injuries on her as she lay on the roadway. Gavin Gill, her 31-year-old husband and father of her infant child, has since been charged with her murder.
The sheer gruesomeness of Gill’s death was shocking and the pain her mother must feel is unimaginable. It tore many a stranger’s heart apart to read how the man she thought was the love of her life allegedly used a cutlass and a hammer to kill her, trying to saw her neck off with the cutlass at one point.
“My daughter always looked out for others and I wish somebody coulda look out for she when she been need it,” Sharda told me via telephone.
She shared openly even though it was very difficult to talk about her daughter whom she said she misses “every second of the day. Right now, I don’t know how to explain it, because she was so loving and kind and she didn’t deserve what happen to her, she didn’t deserve to die like that.”
Those last few words were spoken with force.
“My daughter was a wonderful mother, daughter and friend… she been just starting life. She was only 21, how she must dead like suh cruel?” she questioned expecting no answer.
“I didn’t really want she to get marry because she beena suh young and she life been just start. But she meet he on Facebook and she tell me how she talking to somebody on Facebook. I tell she to be careful because she nah really know the person but she continue to talk to he,” she shared.
“Then is was about four months after he tell she how he coming back to Guyana and she ask he why he coming so quick because them been just start talking and so. But he tell she how he find it hard over deh [the US] and he coming back to Guyana. He been just gone pun a visa so he come back.
“And deh same time we been planning for me big daughter wedding and he then say best dem two get marry together, plan one big wedding for all two a them. You know she been want it. But I went around and ask people and everybody tell me he was a good person,” she said quietly.
The double wedding was held, and both sisters moved out of their mother’s home. She missed them but was happy that they were married and had husbands who loved them.
“But you know is after she marry, I start hearing things that he been marry before and how he use to treat he first wife. How he use to treat she real bad and suh but people nah tell me them things before. But wah save the wife is that she had a father and a brother.
“He tek advantage of me daughter because is me alone, she ain’t had no father nor brother is just me and I try to help she…,” the woman said, crying by this point.
“Is from the time they get marry people start talking but you know I still wish for the best. And you know when I ask she, she tell me is nah true. I don’t know if she been shame or she didn’t want I know.
“When I meet he first he look like such a loving person and you know I feel good that he woulda tek care of me daughter. But now look…,” she uttered the last words loudly, her anger was evident.
I asked her about her husband.
“My husband dead from a heart attack six years ago. He used to work at the Albion Estate and he had a heart attack a Friday and by the Tuesday he dead. Girl, oh my God, that was hard. It was hard to know how he dead, but me daughter won was harder, the cruel way she dead.
“And you know since me husband dead me and them girl was so close, we use to talk everything, cook and eat and take trips together it was just we three. When me husband dead me big daughter use to work full time and the small one, she used to go to school, but she had a part time job and work every Wednesday afternoon and whole day Saturday. I used to stay home and take care of the house and so on,” the mother said.
“I had a very happy married life. I marry me husband since I was 19 and we live for 24 years and it was good. I been want the same for me daughters, just for them to be happy but look wah happen to me baby,” and as she spoke the tears returned.
“And you know I use to sit and cry for them woman wah get murder. I use to feel for them mother, but I never know me time woulda come, that I would feel dah pain.
“When me daughter come back home, I welcome she I just ask she if she sure is what she want, and she tell me how she sure. I never question she more because she been look depressed and I didn’t want stress she out more, I didn’t want to say anything more. I was so happy and glad that that the two of them [her daughter and granddaughter] come out safe but I never expect it was not for long,” she continued.
“The pain I feel oh my God… no mother want to go through this. It is unbearable and unbelievable. No mother should never go through that. Every second of the day I think of her, many times I have to visit the doctor because it too much for me.”
She is also taking care of her granddaughter.
“Right now, she is me life and is I have to look her after. Sometimes she would cry and say ‘Mama’ and I know she miss she mommy and it does make me more sad. But I get good neighbours and friends and they would come and visit me often,” she told me.
“You know sometimes I feel like screaming and just run away. But all I need is justice and I don’t want anybody else to go through this. Let this be an example for other people out there. And people must know somebody kill, then the same thing must happen to them. They mustn’t be sentence to 10 and 12 years,” she said.
“Alright I have to go now. Me got some work to do,” she later said, signalling the end of the conversation.
Omwattie Gill did everything right. She left. She obtained a restraining order. But yet she was brutally murdered.
Maybe it is time for the authorities to start looking at other means of saving our women. I don’t have the answer and the system is broken in so many ways even though we have the right laws on the book. Our women continue to be slaughtered and more needs to be done to save them.
