Mother mourns murdered daughter

SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — Up to a few weeks ago, Natesha Waite, who was found dead with her throat slashed at her home in Burnt Savannah last Tuesday morning, had plans to travel to the United States to care for a sick relative.

As it turned out, those arrangements fell through. And now, the murder victim’s grieving mother, Paulette Neil Waite, can’t shake the thought of how very different life would have been had her daughter gone to America as she had done on occasions in recent years.

“She would still alive today,” Neil Waite, a 54-year-old mother of nine who is awaiting surgery for breast cancer, told the Jamaica Observer by telephone from her home at Burton, close to Lacovia, on Thursday.

The body of Natesha Waite, 38, was found by her 17-year-old son lying in a pool of congealed blood on the floor of her room at Bug Lane, Burnt Savannah — a farming community a few miles west of Santa Cruz — sometime after 9:00 am on Tuesday.

Up to Friday afternoon no arrests had been made as a result of the killing, and police investigators have given no indication of a possible motive.

But relatives believe that Natesha Waite, a mother of three, was killed by her 22-year-old boyfriend, with whom, they said, she had an unstable, tempestuous relationship.

Relatives told the Sunday Observer on Friday that they were very concerned at the slow pace of the investigation. They complained that the police had not made contact to provide an update since talking to them at the crime scene.

Waite’s younger sister, Natoya “Tanya” Waite, told the Sunday Observer that she had advised her older sibling to walk away from the relationship.

“She complain to me and I even hear him threaten her, and I tell her to leave,” said Tanya, who lives in Clarendon with her spouse and children, but has come home to be with family at their home in Burton, a mile-and-a-half from the scene of the tragedy.

Tanya said her sister insisted that despite the problems her boyfriend wouldn’t hurt her because he “loved” her.

Tanya claimed that on various occasions, both her late sister and her boyfriend had broken up with each other only to make up after. The young boyfriend was said to be the jealous type — wanting to search Natesha Waite’s phone and often demanding the access password.

Neil Waite told the Sunday Observer that up to the Saturday before her daughter’s death, neighbours in Burnt Savannah reported witnessing an ugly confrontation involving the couple.

“Saturday whole day, people see him a war wid mi daughter … all squeeze her neck,” Neil Waite said.

By the next day, Sunday, the relationship had seemingly improved. The victim’s son — who two days later found her body — had visited his mother and reported back to relatives that he found her cooking and “blending up” and they all had a meal together though “the vibes never so right”.

Relatives said that on Sunday night, neighbours reported hearing Natesha Waite screaming, but apparently they had grown so used to such altercations, they did nothing.

Relatives kept calling Natesha on Monday — her father’s 74th birthday — and got no response. So on Tuesday morning her son visited, only to look through a window and see his mother’s body on the floor.

Relatives believe she had been dead since Sunday night because of the state of the body, which was showing early signs of decomposition; and the dry nature of the congealed blood.

For Neil Waite, her daughter’s death is particularly painful because she was such a “nice, kind person” and a good daughter who always tried to keep a good relationship with others.

“She nuh ‘warrify’, she keep telling me to live good with people and don’t vex wid dem,” she said.

Neil Waite said her late daughter was her “right hand” who travelled “up and down” with her to hospital to deal with her breast cancer diagnosis. Neil Waite is scheduled to do surgery later this month, though she worries where the fee — said to be in the region of $50,000 — is to come from.

The mother recalled that Natesha Waite had only recently gone online to do an application for National Water Commission piped water which had recently become available.

“Any ups and down, she with me… any help we need she drop in … she was a good pickney”, said Neil Waite.