Police believe aspiring cruise-ship worker Kimberly Lewis was chopped to death on Monday night by a neighbour who had threatened the woman and her husband Jonathan Garcia.
Garcia, 29 and Lewis, 24, were attacked at their business/home, the Beach Viewers Mart, opposite the entrance to Tyrico Bay.
Police reports are that around 11 pm they found Garcia at the side of the road bleeding and he told them his wife was inside suffering from stab and chop wounds. Both were taken by police to the hospital where Lewis died.
Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, Lewis’ mother, Shaffina Lewis, grieved over how her daughter’s death was a bitter end to an unhappy life she stayed in due to love.
“She wasn’t happy and you could see the stress on her face. But she used to say that is her husband and she made a promise and she sticking it through,” Lewis said.
Lewis said her daughter married Garcia under Muslim rites without the family’s knowledge and had left their San Juan home to be with him.
“Last time I see her face to face was three weeks aback. But I talk to her on phone all the time, every day. I not going to judge him to say he’s a bad boy eh, because when we go up he was always kind to us and giving us things,” Lewis said.
Relatives of Garcia said they could not bring themselves to tell him his wife had died as he had to be rushed back to emergency surgery late yesterday.
Relatives, who told Guardian Media they spotted Garcia at the side of the road on their way home, recalled him begging them to leave himself and save his wife. She was found barely breathing on the couple’s bed.
“As I bend the corner I see a man at the side of the road but I thought was police who shoot him ... When I look I realise is Jonathan and I reverse and see him with stab wound all in he eye, he holding he chest with blood pouring out and I see like he get stab in he lungs ... After all that he telling me save he woman. I went inside and see she dying on the bed. I pick she up and push she in the police jeep. As I pick her up my whole left side get wet with blood,” a relative said.
Police said the attack stemmed from a dispute with another couple about two months ago which Garcia got involved in.
Police said a 25-year-old neighbour of Garcia and his girlfriend rents beach chairs and one day they had a falling out, ending with the woman’s chairs disappearing.
Garcia found them in the nearby mangrove and told the woman and was confronted by the man, who had explained to his girlfriend the chairs were lost in a fire.
Both men fought and Garcia was beaten and since then there had been bad blood between the men with threats flying.
The suspect was last night in police custody, along with three other men held with him in relation to Lewis’ murder and Garcia’s attempted murder.
The suspects were all caught by Sgt Sterlin Taylor, Cpl Ali and Cpl Rajkumar, of the Maracas Police Station, allegedly attempting to flee the scene.
The men were held when the Nissan Almera they were in veered off the road on seeing a police roadblock.
Police said the men were driving without headlights and they fled the vehicle when they saw the officers near the Maracas Beach. Two of the men were held along the beach while the other two were held around 3 am yesterday hiding near the beach.
