Murder and secondary victims

The tragedy of death stalked my mind for several days after reading recent police reports about 11 murders during a January weekend: six double murders, two triple murders since the start of 2023, and the tears of grieving parents, friends and relatives.

Sickness is one thing, but murders expose the dark, ugly part of our lives. Murders leave many victims behind – secondary victims such as grieving children, parents and relatives.

These secondary victims suffer the loss – physically, socially and psychologically. And for poor families, financially too. Many a murdered breadwinner has left his poor family in deepened destitution.

There is more to this secondary victimisation, a tragedy of serious criminological interest. And being beyond “ten-day wonders.”

Take the gruesome murder two years ago of 22-year old Andrea Bharatt. whose decomposed body was found in Heights of Aripo, Arima. Last week, in an Express interview, her distraught father, Randolph Bharatt, said: “What can I say? There are demons among us. Demons took my daughter. I can’t talk about my daughter without breaking down. Sometimes I can’t sleep.”

When Mayaro police shot such “demons” a month ago, residents celebrated the police.

Bharatt sorrowfully continued: “People will be there with you at the start but then it’s just you and God. There was no real follow-up. Out of three or four fellas, they only held one.”

The trauma seems endless. He is not only a dejected soul, but he too became a victim of the crime. These are secondary victims left with broken hearts and lifelong scars, hoping for “justice” as consolation.

True, every living thing or person has to die someday, somehow. European folklore says the Grim Reaper, the personification of Death, has a fixed schedule for everyone – a level playing field. Generally, people are scared to die – even killers. Hence doctors and medicine. Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar, unsuccessfully sought to remove people’s fear of death by stating that “Cowards die many times before their deaths...It seems to me most strange that men should fear; /Seeing that death, a necessary end,/Will come when it will come.” OK, but how?

Dominic Kadeem Gokool was found tied up and stuffed inside the Cedros mud volcano. His mother, Denise Alexander, 50, begged for an explanation. She said: ”Every day I cry. It is very tough. I wonder what his last hours were like. I think they put him inside the volcano alive.”

This is a poor family with a grieving mother, searching for an answer. Parents do not forget.

Two weeks ago, Siobhan “Shivy” Rogers was murdered in a parked car. Parents and relatives not only grieve but also get angry at “the system.” After the service, Siobhan’s father, Linus Rogers, declared: “I am not so sure that there is a commitment by a number of administrations to treat with the issue of crime detection and put in measures that over time you can get control over identifying what is going on.”

On social media, one commentator said: “I could really cry now. I am tired of this place.” Another, a family friend, wrote: “How could this happen? I am at a loss emotionally and mentally. Another angel gone unnecessarily. This country is truly a disgusting place.”

The case of the missing mother of three, Danette Pierre, of St Madeleine, is now in the hands of the Homicide Bureau. Her 63-year-old mother Donna Pierre holds on to the belief that her daughter is still alive.

“I am still holding on. I still believe someone is holding my child. Until the police tell me something, I can’t believe my child is dead.”

These are the ways in which suffering parents, secondary victims, seek to lighten their lingering grief.

The pain continues. Two weeks ago, 38 year-old PH driver Cody Robely and 34-year-old Dwayne “Home Alone” Danglade were murdered in Morvant. A relative mournfully complained: “It’s just so displeasing that brothers killing brothers for no reason because it have no love again.”

Lyndon Ferdinand, the bewildered father of murdered 28-year-old Shaquille Ferdinand, said: “It is hurtful, I lost a son and some parents may not survive this trauma but I am strong by the grace of God, but for me, half of me is gone.”

And so one secondary victim remains suffering after another.