Sharon Thomas (pictured at left) spends many moments staring at this portrait of her daughter Shanik, taken when she a toddler. The picture frame bares a constant reminder of the night her daughter was killed a bullet hole in the upper left hand corner. - Carlington Wilmot photo
Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
IN THE wee hours of last Friday, her world was rocked by a barbaric act worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy when gunmen armed with high-powered weapons slaughtered her sleeping twin daughters, Shavel (Silk), and Shavanese (Satin), as well as her 15-year-old daughter, Shanik, who was eight months pregnant.
We met Ms. Thomas on Wednesday under a large tree in a dirt yard at the end of Third Street
in Rema (also called Wilton Gardens in Kingston). She is dressed in full black, and yellow yard
slippers.
"-- mi baby dem a go stink up ah de morgue. The whole a dem belly gone. The police say that there are too many gunshot cases to deal with, the autopsy nah go deal wid till the 21st. How mi baby dem a go stay up de so long, dem belly gone," she says in a quiet monotone.
Her eyes are glazed over with reluctant tears.
Since the incident, doctors have tried to keep her sedated by prescribing what she calls nerve pills, but she confides that "even with the pills, mi still a smoke and drink...mi caan believe mi baby dem gone".
She relates the details of that dreaded morning's events in a dry monotone that only serves to magnify the horror of the act. Only three weeks ago she had moved from a high-rise apartment, because of the growing friction between her sister and her daughter, and into the one-bedroom house in 'Buckas', Rema.
It is a tale that she has told often to satisfy the curiosity of anyone who will listen. It is a moment that she will replay like a grainy home-movie forever in her mind.
"Mi hear the back door kick off, and mi sit down up inna de bed on the corner closest to the front door. Shanik sit up as well, and that's when mi see the gun inna mi face, and a voice seh 'doan run'," she said, standing in the one-room house where the murders were committed.
"The TV was on, but mi neva see dem face, and mi just chuck through the front door same time and as mi land outside mi hear a barrage of gunshot from inside the house.
"Mi seh dem kill Shanik, dem kill Shanik now. The time was about 15 minutes to 4, and mi see a youth a run pass, and mi beg him go inside the house and look if mi baby dem alright. When him come out, him seh Shanik dead, and one of the baby dem dead," she said, her eyes beginning to mist over.
The gunmen had also set fire and detonated bombs close to houses on both sides of her home.
"Same time, mi start bawl out again, and mi run go over to mi friend house, and beg har fi a blouse, and mi use it and wrap up the baby's belly. Satin grab mi tight wid har left hand, and she ah look 'roun normal normal. People seh she dead, she dead,
but mi seh 'no, she no dead'," she said, adding that the air was thick with smoke and the sound of explosions and gunshots not far from where she stood.
"We carry her go a KPH (Kingston Public Hospital), and when dem put har pon the bed, mi realise seh her belly gone, and the whole of har mash up...the doctors dem seh she couldn't mek it...is high-powered weapon...she couldn't mek it....high-powered weapons," she said.
At this time, she begins to repeat herself, using her hands to gesticulate the impotence she's feeling at this time. Eventually, she mouths words but no sound comes out, and even then, Ms. Thomas continues to gesticulate. The words. She has lost the words.
Standing in the room where the incident happened, where the smell of blood and decaying flesh invades the nostrils, Ms. Thomas cannot articulate the raw horror and sense of outrage that she's feeling at this point.
Someone offers a cigarette. She takes it but doesn't light up immediately.
A beautiful woman with thick eyebrows and clear, calm eyes, Ms. Thomas has a scar on her right temple and a cluster of tiny warts on her neck. There's also an ugly mercurochromed gash on her right foot where she injured herself in her flight from her house.
PREGNANT 15-YEAR-OLD SHOWED PROMISE
She begins to tell us about her 15 year-old daughter, Shanike, who had only last year passed the Grade Nine Achievement Test while at Boys Town All-Age and completed one term at the Norman Manley High School before she was impregnated by a teenage boy.
Ms. Thomas lights the cigarette, and takes a long, slow drag, letting out a white jet of smoke from her nostrils.
"She got a lot of As too. I was so upset when she got pregnant because I know she could do well, and I had spent a lot of money on school fees and uniform and so on...but mi deal wid it, and I was going to send her back to school."
Ms. Thomas, who grew up in Rema, lost the father of her twins, Livingston Malcolm, almost three years ago in a drive-by shooting in the Half-Way-Tree area. She had once lived on Cambridge Street, Franklin Town (Kingston), but returned to Rema to take care of her mother who had fallen ill to cancer.
DEATH, A RECURRING THEME IN HER LIFE
This tragedy has brought home a recurring theme in her life: death.
And the death of her twin daughters, Shavel and Shavanese, is only evidence of how capricious and ugly life can be in the ghetto. The twins turned three on October 15, and the four pairs of blue sneakers on the dusty what-not opposite the blood-stained bed are grim reminders of innocence lost.
The tragedy is compounded by the fact that three years ago, she had a difficult pregnancy, and the doctors informed her that she would not be able to conceive any more children.
"After the pregnancy, I was depressed because of what the doctors said, and just when I began to recover and move on with my life, this go happen. If..." she said. She begins to totter unsteadily on her legs, and takes angry little puffs on her cigarette.
IF ONLY ...
If...
The word 'if' plays a big role in her life these days. If only she had not moved from the high-rise building. If only she had known of the attack. If only she had not run.
If...
Members of various church organisations have approached Ms. Thomas to offer help and counselling but she has been too busy to seek any real psychiatric intervention.
Ms. Thomas also has a 24 year-old daughter who lives in a separate area of the Wilton Gardens community, and who has rallied to her side. However, she has not returned to her one bedroom house since the incident, and may be contemplating leaving the community for good.
"I can't live here anymore...I just can't," she said.
"Right now, I am hoping that they move up the autopsy date 'cause the baby dem no have no belly, mi no waan dem stay de and rotten."
