LIVING IN FEAR

By Antoinette Connell

antoinetteconnell@nationnews.com

A 76-year-old woman, raped three times when a gunman held her captive on an open lot she owns in a rural district is warning others to be careful.

The St John resident said she is living in fear and has become distrustful of people, even the Sunday Sun team that approached her.

More disturbing, the ordeal was carried out while her grandson was tied up feet way.

“I am scared for my life. He tell me if I tell anyone he’ll be back but I know that there are other women in the area that come up on the 12 o’clock bus at night so I couldn’t keep this to myself in that way. I am not only thinking about myself but I am also thinking of others,” the woman said.

About three weeks ago, around 11 p.m., the woman took her dog to the back of the house – to the unfenced area traditionally traversed by residents – and a masked gunman approached, ordering her not to move. He placed his hand over her mouth and threw her to the ground. As she wrestled with him, she managed to get his hand off her mouth and shouted

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for her grandson.

At the approach of her grandson, who thought she had fallen, the assailant retreated to the darkness under the mango tree and pounced on the slimlybuilt teenager, threw him down, sat on him and eventually tied his hands with a strip of blue material he brought to the scene, the woman recounted.

She pointed to the nearest house metres away, explaining that there was an ailing occupant who is in bed early and the other house is still under construction, despite its finished look.

Her grandson was taken between those two premises while the gunman returned and forced himself on her at different times.

‘Grilled me’

“He grilled me with questions and tell me I got nuff money [and] he want the money. He ransacked my house, and he come back out and he raped me,” she said, adding that he had her lying on a piece of board in what is virtually her backyard.

“He tried to suffocate me with the plastic bag he had over my face but I tell him not to do it, that ‘I can’t breathe if you do that’. He tried to sodomise me and I said ‘no’ and tense up my body. He was going to rape me a fourth time but his conscience like it tell himself not to.”

Her heart broke, she said, when nearing the end of the nightmare, the gunman had the gun aimed at her and her grandson pleaded with him not to harm her and to be careful with how tight he tied her because she had broken her foot previously.

“When he pointed the gun at me and my grandson was here lying down, my grandson said ‘don’t shoot her because she is all that I got’.

That makes me cry every time I remember it. The rape makes me cry but that hits me here,” she said, placing her hand over her heart.

The pensioner was glad that her grandson, whom she raised from a babe, was spared witnessing the assault.

Along with taking the medication prescribed to ward off possible STIs after she was taken for a medical check up by the police, she also has to take medication to assist with sleeping.

“This got me not trusting nobody. I get nervous quick, that is why I asked you all questions just now. I am jumpy. If I go out for a minute, I got to look all round the house to make sure nobody in the house,” she explained.

She is hoping someone is held soon to put her mind at rest but also steeling herself to face the attacker.

“I don’t know who it is but whoever it is, I hope that they catch them because I want them to get dealt with. I am making myself strong enough to ask them what have I ever done to them for them to do this to me. Some people are not strong enough to ask that question but I am strong enough to ask it because I pray,” she said.

Since then, at great expense to her family, the property has been fenced in including where the attack occurred, cameras installed and the mango tree heavily trimmed.

Police confirmed that investigations are continuing in the matter and are appealing to anyone with information to come forward.