Man chops up women, ingests unknown substance

While 46-year-old Rosalie Roberts and her 25-year-old daughter Shanique are thankful to God for being alive, the women are struggling to forgive the man whose actions landed them both at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.{{more}}

The women received cutlass chops from Rosalie’s boyfriend of four years, Errol Anderson, who himself is a patient at the same hospital, after he ingested an unknown substance.

Anderson allegedly attacked the women on the night of Saturday October 15, then proceeded to set their five bedroom house on fire, after a brief argument, which none of the women expected to become near fatal.

The mother of four daughters and one son, who celebrated her latest birthday one day after coming close to death, told SEARCHLIGHT from her hospital bed in the Female Surgical Ward of the hospital, that moments before she was attacked, she had just returned to her Troumaca home from a funeral with Anderson, also known as ‘Scravy’.

She said that disagreement arose when she informed her mate earlier in the week, that she was going to spend her birthday at her aunt’s home, which did not sit well Anderson, who became more agitated on Saturday night, when he brought her home.

“He left and went down in the yard and I stayed in the car… then I left the car and I see him run coming to me, but I did not run. Then he asked me where I going and I said I going to buy a phone card to call ‘Tanty’.

“Then he grip me by me hair, then he throw me on the ground and then he start pelting cuff…. then he pull me across a gutter and then he pick up one of the old chair on the ground and he hit me on me head with it, then he let me go.”

Roberts recounted that as she made her way to the house, one of her daughters, Shanique’s twin sister, approached her and asked her what was wrong.

She said that she told her daughter what had happened and that daughter got into a brief argument with Anderson.

At that point, Anderson made his way back to his vehicle, while his other victim Shanique, who had heard the commotion outside the house, made her way to her mother’s side.

Shanique, 25, said that she then heard her sister warning her mother to run, as Anderson had returned to the yard with a cutlass in hand.

“We run down in the house and I was trying to get the door closed. Same time I pull in the door, he hold the door and was pulling. So, eventually I let go and run back into my sister bedroom and mommy run in behind me.

“He come in the room and he start to fire chop, so I put up my hand and I know I get hit, but I didn’t know I get cut.”

Shanique said that her attacker continued to chop at her, and by the time he was through, she had sustained more than ten chop wounds to her right hand, both legs, head, back and upper lip.

She also suffered a fractured right hand.

Her mother, who ran to a different room and tried to hide under a bed, was chased by their assailant, and was also hacked about her body, receiving injuries to both hands, (her left hand broken in two areas), legs, head and face.

Both women received multiple stitches.

Neighbours and family members who heard the screams of the victims and attempted to rescue the women were also chased by their attacker and sought refuge in a nearby house.

Anderson allegedly broke the windows and doors of that house and when he was unable to enter, he returned to the Roberts’ home and proceeded to set the house on fire while Rosalie was inside.

“When I was under there (the bed) he come back in and I see him light the matches and after it started blazing, he went out,” the matriarch Roberts said.

Shanique, who had fled to the neighbour’s house, said, “When I peep through the bathroom window (of the neighbour’s house) I see fire behind my bedroom and I try to tell them go and out it and they tell me he’s out there with the cutlass and they scared to out it, so nobody did not go.”

Anderson eventually fled the scene and Shanique was then taken to the Chateaubelair Hospital.

Her mother, who crawled from the burning house before it was consumed, was found some distance away and was also taken to the hospital in Chateaubelair.

Now, lying side by side at the hospital in Kingstown, the women say that they are happy to be alive and thank God that their lives were spared.

They, however, say that they are upset with actions of Archibald, who was lying in a bed in the Male Medical Ward of the hospital. He is believed to have consumed a poisonous substance.

“I am very sad that my daughter get involved in this… they never see nobody take advantage of me like this,” Rosalie, a farmer and labourer by profession, said.

“I tell myself I should have avoided this thing long time, but because of fright, I never leave. We was together for four years and every time he used to tell me he will kill me and kill himself.

“But I say: if he could do that to me and my daughter, I don’t think that he should go drink anything. I think he should stand and face the consequence as a man.”

Shanique, the mother of an 18-month-old son, said that she is concerned about her child’s welfare, since she has lost all her possessions in the fire.

She said that she is at a loss why he would attack her, since they had never had any issues.

“I don’t really get involved in mommy and his thing…. I don’t know why he attacked me, but if I had the strength… God knows.

“Now everything burn up; everything gone.”

SEARCHLIGHT was unable to make contact with Anderson, who was under police guard at the hospital.