Ex-lover on the run
Times Exclusive
Death came suddenly. But before that it was an ordinary day for Dorothy James ,40-year-old janitor and mother of seven, as she made her way back from work to the family home in the deep rural St Ann community of Aboukir, near Alexandria. And then death came suddenly.
It was about 6:30 Friday evening, October 31and darkness was already settling over the fields of banana, yam, citrus, cocoa and vegetable crops through which Miss James walked to her home, shared by two of her children and her sister, Etta James and her children.
Dorothy James was walking with her brother when, reports are a man with whom she had ended a relationship months ago, sprang out of bushes and attacked her with a machete. The swiftness of the unprovoked attack caught Ms James and her brother by surprise. Ms James was chopped across the back and head and ran off tumbling over bushes in the field and spilling some cho cho she had brought along to feed a pig she reared in her family’s backyard.
SICKENED
Before her brother could respond, the man sprang over the woman who was on the ground wailing and trying to get up. He continued to hack away at her body on the ground. Family members are still sickened by photos, taken on cell phones, of the body with the bones of the upper arm chopped through, the eyes hackled out and other wounds to the body of Miss James.
Her sister Etta, one of 10 siblings said: “I was there when dem tie her up in sheet and take her to Alexandria,” where a health clinic is operated before she was prepared for the 35 kilometre ride to St Ann’s Bay hospital. She died before getting there. “Is a wicket act…wicked,” she said, shaking her head as if still not believing it, as she demonstrated the smashing of her sister’s bones and the severity of the blows.
Ms James’ brother received a wound to his hand but was shocked by the attack.
Nothing had prepared the family for it. Ms James said her sister’s relationship with the suspect had been brief, had gone on for less than a year and then had ended earlier this year. She said Dorothy, also called Grace, had gone on with her life and was simply caring for her children, the majority of whom live with their father from a previous relationship. Her youngest child is less than three years old. She has one grandchild.
She said the man had continued to call Dorothy wanting to pick up the relationship but she refused. He said the former lover had called his sister that day telling her he was not going to be around that day, even though they had nothing going. That made even greater, Ms James’ surprise at seeing him.
One area resident ,who help The Times reach the family home, was among other people who came to express condolence on Sunday morning. “She don’t trouble nobody. You never hear anybody saying anything bad about Grace,” she said.
Police are seeking the alleged attacker who is said to have fled the area. However, at least one family members of the James household said he had received text message and phone calls warnings from the attacker that he would be coming back for them or is not yet done with them.
Etta James says she is keeping the family together and already facing tough economic times says the loss of her sister is just hard to bear. She said: “We are very, very close. She is a nice person.”
