THE EDITOR, Sir:

As a child at the age of three I vividly remember awaking one morning to sounds of a young woman screaming out. The sound was so frightening that I can still feel the chills of the sound through the air. I remember running from my bed to my mother's side to ask her what was happening. Her response was "stay inside don't come out here." Being overly curious I peeped through the window to see a woman being carried between two blood-soaked mattresses to Cornwall Regional Hospital, which was just down the street. Her body was cut up so severely that her intestines seemed to be visible between the mattresses.

Years later my mother told me what happened when the memory came back to me. The young woman was in an abusive relationship with a man and tried to leave him. He found out that she was moving out. He proceeded to nail all the doors shut and beat her using a machete. He then placed her body between the two mattresses and lit her on fire.

This happened around 1985 or 1986 and it hurts me so much to know that over 20 years later women are still being subject to this kind of abuse in Jamaica. I believe it is time that police officers stop turning a blind eye to domestic violence and stop calling it "man and woman ting." They can not just allow these men to continue with the violence they bred into their children. What becomes of these children who witness domestic violence daily?

Many call the women who stick around foolish, but it is not that they are foolish, it may be that they have no one to run to. Some mothers when their daughters come to them with issues they tell their daughters to go back to their husband and pray about it. I also do not understand how the father of this woman who was decapitated says that his daughter was beaten by this man for over 16 years. How can you as a father sit back and watch this occur.

Many are to be blamed for the tragedy that took place in St. Catherine and for those that are still taking place today. Domestic violence is not a thing to be swept under the rug because after a while the rug will begin to show signs of distress.

I am, etc.,

LATOYA L. STEWART

latoyastewart82@yahoo.com