Mother of four chopped to death, ex-husband takes own life

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Rhondor Dowlat-Rostant

A self-employed mother of four was chopped to death by her estranged husband at her Laventille home yesterday morning.

The suspect, identified as Kevon “LA” Harris, fled the scene after the attack and was subsequently found hanging from a tree at Woodford Square in Port-of-Spain.

The victim has been identified as Sherian Huggins, 29, of #52 Dan Kelly.

Huggins and Harris were married under Muslim rites but were divorced two months ago, also under Muslim rites.

According to a police report, at about 4 am a close female relative of the suspect told police she heard Huggins and Harris engaged in an argument. Upon checking, the relative saw Harris armed with a cutlass and chopping Huggins about her body. When the female relative called out to neighbours for help, police said, Harris ran away.

Police officers who were called to the scene found Huggins already dead with multiple chop wounds to the upper torso and neck when they arrived on the scene. Police said Huggins’ body was wearing only a multi-coloured top.

Huggins’ brother-in-law Isaiah Worrell said the family was now very concerned about the well-being of one of Huggins’ children – a ten-year-old who tried to fight off his mother’s killer.

“He is very traumatised and we are worried about him because this can affect him. You know and his father was killed by police some years ago, now to see his mother killed, it real traumatising for him and the rest of the children. We have them by relatives but they are very traumatised,” Worrell told Guardian Media.

He described Huggins as a “good person, respectable, always quiet and one not to hold talk with plenty people as she was a practicing Muslim and wore the hijab.”

“This is a shocking thing to us here in the community and they divorced about two months now. It is a shocker to hear a Muslim brother kill a Muslim sister but we know she is in Paradise.”

Worrell said the incident spurred anger throughout the community as well as among “the Muslim brothers.”

“We are real mad about this but we have to look for betterment now. She was just a single parent with four children trying to put them along the right path.”

Worrell said people saw Harris in the area at about 2 am and reportedly broke into Huggins’ home.

“He broke into the house with the intention to murder because people see him earlier around the area and then he went and break into the house. Allah knows best.”

Huggins’ mother-in-law (children’s grandmother), Lona St Louis, said Huggins was a victim of abuse by Harris.

“I had to pull away my grandson because he was trying to defend his mother too and I didn’t want him to get kill and me too,” St Louis said in a telephone interview last evening.

St Louis said she spent most of the day yesterday at the police station assisting police with their investigations.

A neighbour, who wished not to be identified, told the Guardian Media that she saw one of Huggins’ sons walking up and down the road seeking help but was too afraid to venture out that hour of the morning.

“We heard the bawling and when we realised it sounded serious, we looked outside and saw the little boy, a ten-year-old, running on the road calling out for ‘somebody’, that was when I told my son to go but we didn’t know what going on because we knew it was a woman lived there with her mother-in-law,” the neighbour said.

“We were sleeping when we were awakened by the screams but we really couldn’t go out. The incident was very disturbing but I’m worried about the children because they would have seen their mother in that state.”

She described Huggins as a hardworking woman who did printing.

“I knew her to be very quiet. Her children’s father died a few years ago and she lived there with her mother-in-law.”

A close friend of the family, who also did not want to be identified, claimed that Huggins and Harris were having problems in their relationship and had “taken a break from each other.”

“But he was always begging her to make back up with him and he claimed to love her and can’t live without her but we didn’t know it would have ended up like this because he often talked about him dying, not her.”

A party of officers, including Snr officers Ag/Sgt Lucas, Cpl De Silva and Ag/Insp Maraj, visited the scene along with Homicide officers, including WPC Mollah, WPC Liverpool, WPC Morgan Jobe and Ag/Cpl Pierre.

Investigations are continuing.