Sugar Ray Thomas
A family and community are stunned and scared by the brutal rape and murder of a 33-year-old disabled woman who was diagnosed as having the mental development of a child.
Family members found the naked body of 33-year-old Terry Bowen in Higgin Town, with multiple stab wounds, many to her face, on Tuesday morning, December 27.
MP for the area, Lisa Hanna was among those shocked by the murder of the woman she knew and described as having a child’s body. Ms Hanna said, in an instagram post: “Today was painful. I went to visit with one of my strongest community workers whose sister was raped and murdered yesterday at her home in Higgin Town in my constituency. Her name was Terry and she had Down Syndrome and was no bigger that a six year old that wore a child’s size 13 shoe. The person who raped her put a bucket over her head and stabbed her so many times even in her face. How & Why? We are all in shock! May God give her rest and peace thanks to all the police who came out and thanks to acting Commissioner Novelette Grant who assisted us today we are going to find this person and ensure justice is served.”
In an interview with the North Coast Times, almost two weeks after the gruesome killing of his sister, Bernard Tulloch says he and his wife and other family members in Higgin Town did the best they could for the 33-year-old woman who was afflicted by Down’s Syndrome.
“People still blaming us, but even if Terry was living under a tree nobody had the right to rape her and kill her. People in the community look on her as a little child. She was small so people look on her as a 14-year-old,” Mr Tulloch argued.
Mr Tulloch said that his sister came every morning about 8:30 to where he lived with his wife and five children for breakfast and spent the day there.
“She (Terry) helpful in nuff ways. If she see the yard dirty, she grab the rake and rake it up. If a little water to ketch, she a ketch it,” he said.
However, though his sister spent the days with him and his family, she would not sleep there. She returned to her own home by 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. each day. This was her routine every day.
THAT MORNING
However, on the morning of Tuesday, December 27, when there was no sign of Terry by 10 a.m., they called a cousin who lived close by to check on Terry. When the cousin went, she realized that the door was kicked off and the room had been ransacked. Despite the cousin calling for Terry, there was no answer.
Mr Tulloch’s wife, Melody and one of their sons later went to the house and saw that the house had been ransacked. Her (Terry’s) mattress was one direction and her bed was in another. However, one of Mrs Tulloch’s sons later climbed on a bed and got the gruesome shock. Terry was naked and dead and also seemed to have been raped.
Mr Tulloch, who was released from the hospital just a few weeks earlier, for suffering from hypertension and diabetes, said that his wife later called him, but did not tell him, on the phone, of the news, because of his recent illness.
He said that detectives, who had arrived on the scene later informed him that a bucket was over her face and she had been stabbed repeatedly in the face.
“You can see where there was a struggle. Blood was on the wall and she had stabs in her face… It rough. I lose lots of family members, all four in one year, but mi nuh feel it like how mi feel this one yah. She never deserve this kind of death,” Mr Tulloch reflected.
He added: “If you a walk coming and Terry see you, she turn her back and look in the bush. She was harmless. That’s one of the things that hurt me so. She wasn’t a street person that could fight back. She was innocent. People just can’t believe all now that them do her like that.”
ABUSED BEFORE
Mr Tulloch told the North Coast Times that it was not the first time that Terry had been sexually violated. He said that seven years ago, Bowen was raped and was impregnated.
It was when she fainted and was taken to the doctor that they found out she had been sexually molested and was pregnant.
“She saw many doctors and the psychiatrist said she thinks like a two-year-old and cannot consent to sex, and anybody go to her… that should be considered as rape. And from that, we went to the police station and they took interview of myself, my wife and her (Terry) and from that time until now, nothing came pot of it. It just disappeared,” Mr Tulloch argued.
He said that he and his wife also tried many times to get the disabled woman into an institution, such as the infirmary where she could be taken care of, but nothing happened.
“We tried our best and we did our best and nuff people in the community can attest that under the circumstances we did our best, because we nuh get a lot of help from nobody for her more than some uncles and some of her cousins,” Mr Tulloch added.
He now hopes that his sister’s killer will be found and the autopsy can be done so that she can be buried.
