Piercing screams penetrated the still winds at Cane Garden Park in St Thomas late Sunday night when a family was held at gunpoint and ordered to lie face-down by two masked men.
With guns pointed at their heads, the three women were terrified and feared for their lives, wondering if this would be the end.
Luckily it was not and today they are all alive, recognizing though that this ordeal could have had a totally different ending.
Jennifer Haynes can recall every detail that led to the horrifying incident which haunts her and causes sleepless nights.
It was around 10:15 p.m. when Haynes, her daughter Natasha and friend Latoya were huddled in the TV room watching the celebrations following the results of the Soca Royale show in Bushy Park, St Philip.
What started out as a relaxing Sunday for the family, who had planned to spend the entire day following the Sweet Soca and Party Monarch competitions, ended in terror.
“We were in the TV room and we had the side door open. We were debating who should have won and who should not have won and generally how they placed.
“The next thing, we saw two men step through the door, fully masked, covered from head to toe and with guns in hand. Each had a gun and only their eyes were out,” said Haynes, speaking to the MIDWEEK NATION at her City business yesterday.
The masked men demanded money and ordered the three not to move.
Haynes recalled that Latoya had panicked and was screaming. The men turned their attention to her and said: “Don’t keep any noise.”
Haynes was frightened, but also very angry. “The audacity of these people to invade my home,” she said.
She was so upset that she started to “give them talk” even though she admitted she didn’t remember exactly what she had said.
At that point, one of the men pitched a slap across the left side of her face and hit her with the gun at the back of the head.
By this time her daughter was screaming, telling her “do as they say”.
Haynes was still sitting in the chair with a gun pointed at her head while Natasha and Latoya were on the floor, face down, the other culprit steadily holding the gun to theirs.
She admits, though, she was scared when one of them “racked” the gun pointed at her. “I thought he was going to shoot me.”
The men demanded money and Haynes guided one of them to the bedroom where her bag was.
“I took out the purse. It had 100 and something dollars in it and I gave him. The man said to me, ‘This is all the money you got? You got a store in town, where the jewellery?’”
“I told him I don’t keep money in my house.”
Haynes remembers the man looking around in the bedroom, pocketing the odd change that was knocking about.
“I then told him I was feeling sick. I told him I would faint and I needed something from the fridge. I left the bedroom and headed to the kitchen.”
But with the front door in sight, this brazen woman bypassed the kitchen and bolted outside.
“I turned that clip and pushed the door and from the moment I hit outside, I was screaming blue murder. I ran and ran and ran,” she said.
“I ran for my life. I felt every gravel on the road, I felt the water on the ground because it was raining that night. I ran and called the names of all the neighbours I know. I was shouting ‘call the police’.”
As she was running she looked back, knowing two others were still in the house.
“When I looked back I saw the two men coming out and then I saw my daughter following, and her screams joined force with mine.”
Haynes’ heart skipped a beat, though, when she realized that the men had done an about turn and headed back inside the house. Latoya was still inside trying to make good her escape but she was stopped in her tracks by a lash from the gun-toting culprits.
They had returned for her wallet.
The men then rushed out of the house and escaped into the darkness of the night.
Haynes, barely audible now as a result of the screaming, said that even though she was scared, she was still able to think.
“I always tell my daughter that whenever you are faced with any situation, you must still be able to think. To every problem there is a solution,” she said.
The businesswoman said this was the first time in the ten years she has been living in Southview Drive, Cane Garden Park, that she has felt unsafe.
She said for the last three weeks she and other neighbours have been calling Barbados Light & Power to fix the streetlights along the stretch of road on which
she lives. She said the streetlight right outside her house was still not working up to Monday night.
“I don’t feel safe anymore. I can’t sleep. I replay it in my mind, and my heart misses a beat reliving all that happened. I will carry this to my grave,” she said.
Haynes said: “I want people to be aware. I was in a comfort zone. I never thought I would live to see this day. Enjoy what you have worked for, but you just have to be careful.”
carolmartindale@nationnews.com