GIRLFRIEND CHOPPED TO DEATH
BY RALPH BANWARIE Saturday, August 18 2012
A policeman used a
hatchet to chop to death his estranged girlfriend at her home in Guaico
on Thursday night, two weeks after she broke off their relationship.
The
relatives of Giselle Crystal Meloney, 24, lay the blame for her murder
on the police service, saying no action was ever taken against the
policeman although the young woman made reports about his death threats
at the Sangre Grande Police Station.
The policeman, 35, who was last assigned to the Arouca Police Station, remained in custody yesterday.
Giselle, a mother of a five-year-old boy, Chris, was last seen alive by her parents as she had visited them at their home at Guaico Trace, Guaico hours before she was brutally slain.
Her father Ronan Rogers said she spent the evening with Chris, who lives with his grandparents, and promised to take the boy to Manzanilla beach yesterday before she left at about 10.30 pm to return to her apartment. Giselle, an employee of the Ministry of Community Development, lived at Manic Street, Guaico. Her mother, Margaret Meloney, said she was jovial, laughing and talking, during her time with them.
“Only one hour you were alive making us happy, playing music, dancing and giving picong to your relatives. I can’t believe this,” a weeping Margaret said, as if speaking to her daughter, when Newsday visited yesterday. Charlene Meloney said she got a call from her sister shortly after she left their parent’s home.
She said Giselle told her she believed the policeman was following her. Despite Charlene’s advice to return to their parents house, Giselle insisted on going to her apartment.
However, at about 11.30 pm, police received a report from Giselle’s landlord that he had heard screams coming from her apartment and saw a man jumping through a window.
The landlord also woke up Giselle’s brother, Sherwin Charles, who lived in an apartment at the back, and told him about what he heard and saw.
Charles went to his sister’s apartment and found her on her bed bleeding from her neck. Her arms were upraised near her head suggesting she tried to shield herself during the attack. Charles called their parents who went to the apartment only to find Giselle dead.
Police were called in and ASP Neville Sankar led a team from the Sangre Grande station. They were later joined by homicide officers of the Arouca station.
Her killer was later detained by officers of the Eastern Task Force after a high speed chase. His vehicle was confiscated and he was arrested and taken to the Sangre Grande station where he has been interrogated.
Police believe Giselle’s killer waited in her apartment and began attacking her with a hatchet when she entered her bedroom, after which he jumped through the window and escaped in his vehicle before being caught. District medical officer Dr Ugw viewed Giselle’s body which was taken to the Forensic Sciences Centre, St James where an autopsy was done yesterday. Three of Giselle’s brothers, one a Newsday employee, said her murder has left their family in shock.
“She was a quiet person, a caring person. She was very loving, and she had a way about her, that she could make anybody smile. This here is hard, because she was so young, and she has a young boy of her own that she takes care of,” said one of her brothers, who did not want to be identified, in an interview at the forensic centre. The brothers confirmed Giselle tried to end her relationship with the policeman.
“She was in a bad relationship, and she tried to end it, but like he didn’t want it to end. In fact she even told us that he threatened to kill her if she ever left him, and low and behold, about two weeks after she called it quits, now he killed her,” said her brother.
At the home of Giselle’s parents, relatives sat around crying.
Margaret said Giselle’s son is due to enter primary school next month but does not know how he will cope as he was close to her.
“We cannot convinced Chris that his mother had died. He believes she left for her work and will return in the evening,” Margaret said.
Charlene said Giselle confided in her about how the policeman would threaten to kill her, showing her a cutlass and hatchet.
“It was constant abuse and threats for my sister,” Charlene said.
She said the family had concerns about Giselle’s relationship with the policeman who has two children from previous relationships.
When they asked how things were, she would always say, “good”, Giselle’s father told Newsday.
“You believe that she could not live with us, at times she made us get disenchanted with her choices. She is our daughter and we all love her, but she will never listen to advice and that (was) the reason for her renting,” he said.
Rogers said he advised his daughter to be careful, telling her “jealously kills” as he felt the policeman was obsessive.
He said Giselle made several reports to the Sangre Grande police about the death threats from the policeman after she broke off the relationship.
“She kept making complaints about the man following her and not a day for the two weeks a policeman came to caution their colleague. Look where it ended,” said the grieving father. “This could have been avoided if the police had acted and my daughter would have been alive.”
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