Woman stabbed to death

THE father of 21-year-old Kyesha De Souza, who was fatally stabbed early yesterday morning by a male companion, has called on the nation's men to take a deeper look at themselves before resorting to violence.

"These men have to check themselves," the father of four said in an interview at his Trou Macaque, Laventille home yesterday. "Life is a special thing, but people are not recognising that these days. They don't have that to consider anymore."

He told Newsday that he last saw De Souza at about 9 pm on Saturday as she was leaving home to go to a pool party at the Cascadia Hotel.

"She just kissed me and her mother and then left. All she said was, 'daddy I'm gone' and that was the last I saw of her," said the father who asked not to be identified. "I later heard there was an incident and she got stabbed. I don't know how it happened or who she was with. When I heard about it, I couldn't even think straight."

Police sources said that at about 5.30 am yesterday, De Souza and a 31-year-old Beetham Estate man were in his silver-coloured Mitsubishi Galant car which was proceeding along Belmont Valley Road, when they got into a heated argument. De Souza, it has been claimed, pulled the steering wheel causing the car to run off the road.

The enraged driver pulled out a knife and stabbed De Souza several times. Bleeding heavily, she managed to get out of the car and tried to run away but the man chased after her and stabbed her some more times. An off-duty Coast guardsman who witnessed the incident later took De Souza to Port of Spain General Hospital where she died at about 8.30 am.

Belmont police were alerted and went to the scene just in time to see the man trying to start his car in order to flee. The man was arrested and handed over to Homicide Investigations officers. De Souza's father described her as a caring and ambitious young woman who loved children.

Newsday was told she went to Servol to get her certificate in Child Care and the last place she worked was at a daycare in Cascade. Just last week she went to the National Training Centre to apply for on the job training. De Souza was the second woman killed over the weekend.

On Friday night, Carla Quamina, the twin sister of Magistrate Carl Quamina, was shot dead. Sources indicate that she was shot dead at her Sangre Grande home some time after 11 pm. Autopsies on the bodies of De Souza and Quamina are to be done today at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.