When murder comes home ...

An hour before her mother Heather Moyston was killed in a murder-suicide by her husband, Aimee Norman received a text message from her.

As she did regularly, Moyston was inquiring about the well-being of her only child and her four grandchildren who live in Atlanta, Georgia.

That final text message now serves as a reminder of the close relationship she shared with her mother and the pain and loss she will forever endure.

But her sorrow is also deepened as she ponders if there was anything she could have done to prevent the tragic events which unfolded on the night of August 5.

“Maybe if I had called or responded to the message faster, I could have probably said something that would have maybe led to a different path,” the 34-year-old medical doctor shared with The Sunday Gleaner last week.

On the fateful Saturday night, the bodies of 59-year-old Heather Moyston and her husband, 41-year-old Wesley Moyston, both of Smokey Vale in St Andrew, were discovered in a vehicle along Windward Road in Kingston with gunshot wounds to the head.

The police recovered a nine-millimetre pistol containing 18 9mm rounds at the scene.

Investigators theorise that Wesley, an ex-firefighter, shot his wife, group administrator at Digicel Jamaica, before turning the gun on himself.

According to Norman, the two had been married for eight years, but had a tumultuous relationship. Her mother had finally decided to seek a divorce.

“I can’t say if the conflict is because of him not wanting to follow through with the divorce. But I know she was actively seeking and going through the process of a divorce and, to my knowledge, he was a very argumentative person,” she said.

Norman said she did not have a relationship with her stepfather, noting that his being responsible for her mother’s death has made her grieving process much harder.

“Her life was taken. It hits so hard at times. The only word I can use right now is just sadness because her life was taken versus, you know, if I found out she was sick or anything like that, which wasn’t the case. It definitely has more weight and more trauma seeing that her life was taken,” a still-torn Norman shared.

With the ordeal still raw after burying her mother two weeks ago, Norman said it has taken a toll on her mentally. She has days when she “zones out” as she struggles to come to terms with the “gut-wrenching experience”.

She relies on the support of family and friends, especially as she had given birth to her fifth child six weeks ago, an occasion she said her mother would ensure she was a part of.

IMPACT ON THOSE LEFT BEHIND

Norman’s experience brings to light the impact this kind of crime can have on the family members left behind, which psychologist Dr Leahcim Semaj said can include shock, disbelief, anger, depression, and even guilt.

Semaj contends that the crime of murder-suicide stemming from domestic conflicts is often rooted in strife and a fear of loss, noting that it can sometimes be premeditated.

“Usually, there is a track record. There is a long series of arguments and conflict going on and on, and verbal threats and so on from intimate partner violence,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

“I’ve heard of situations where the person decided that they want out, they want to end the relationship, and that’s when the other partner just kills them and kills themselves.”

Last year, there were 8,714 reports of domestic violence cases to the Domestic Violence Intervention Centres. Of this figure, 6,221 were females.

Additionally, there were 2,757 children who were directly or indirectly affected by incidents of domestic violence.

According to police data, Jamaica recorded nine cases of murder-suicide over the last five years. Two were recorded in 2018, while there were three incidents of murder-suicide in 2020. One case occurred in 2021 and another in 2022. Since the start of the year, two cases of murder-suicide have been recorded. There were no incidents reported in 2019.

A recent study led by clinical psychologist Dr Audrey Pottinger revealed that 27 cases of murder-suicide occurred in Jamaica from January 2007 to June 2017. This is a rate of 0.92 per 100,000, which was higher than the international rate.

In all cases, the offenders were males.

SEEK HELP EARLY

“We always recommend that people seek help early. Once you are in a relationship and you realise it is beginning to get violent, even verbal violence, that’s not normal. Anger is one step away from danger, it’s only a matter of time before it escalates to another level,” Semaj warned.

He added that families that have been affected by murder-suicide can also face financial problems, compounded in most cases by the loss of two breadwinners, and at times may be vilified and isolated.

“People feel stigmatised from members of the community because it’s one thing if that was a family where a murder took place, versus a family where a double – a murder-suicide – took place. It conjures up major instability. So then family members feel very ashamed that they are a part of that family that produces that,” he said.

But even more worrisome, the psychologist laments, is the impact such a tragedy will have on the children in these families.

“It can cause serious long-term and behavioural issues, anxiety, depression, even substance abuse. And these children struggle even with issues of attachment, because when you lose two parents tragically, then how do you become attached to anyone else in the future?” he asked.

Semaj said family members will need the support of mental health professionals “for a long time to come”.

Dr Warren Thompson, director of Children and Family Programmes at the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), told The Sunday Gleaner that his agency provides support for children affected by murder-suicide, which often involves long-term therapeutic intervention.

He said the agency also provides regular case management “to determine care arrangement if that child needs to go before the court for being in need of care and protection”.

“If there is a suitable family member who can provide care, we give them advice on steps they need to take to become the legal guardian of the child,” Thompson added.

CAN’T STOP THE TEARS AFTER SEVEN YEARS

Seven years ago, Audrey and Walde Anderson’s 42-year-old daughter, Gail Anderson, was killed by her common-law husband in a murder-suicide at their home in Hope Village, Williamsfield in Manchester.

Despite the passage of time, their grief is still palpable.

“Every second mi cry. Right now, a di tears a come. She was mi hand and foot. A she always do everything fi mi,” 83-year-old Audrey told The Sunday Gleaner last week.

Sometimes she sits on her verandah and envisions her daughter walking up the steps to visit her as she would usually do.

Audrey and her husband, who is 85, live with one of their eight children in Davyton, Manchester. She explained that the family not only had to live through the psychological trauma of losing their daughter the way they did, but Gail, who was a basic school principal, was also their main breadwinner.

Since her death in 2016, the elderly couple said they try to support themselves by selling cooking gas in the community, but business has not been too good.

“Wi haffi just try wi way. Wi haffi just help wi self. Mi always do likkle buying and selling, but mi haffi stop cause a sickness,” Audrey said, noting that she is diabetic and often experiences pain in different areas of her body.

She said her daughter’s death at the hands of her partner, John Williams, who was a member of the Jamaica Defence Force, came as a shock, as he had a very good relationship with the family. The couple did not have any children.

While caressing a photo of her daughter, who she fondly recalled as friendly and ambitious, Audrey said that a major obstacle to accepting her death is the fact that the family has been cheated out of ever getting justice.

“If the man were alive, yuh would more have something to say, but from him dead, you can’t claim no justice cause him tek fi himself di justice,” said the grieving mother.

Her husband Walde chimed in, “She gone and I can’t put that in my mind any more. But every time it come cross mi mind and mi look pon it, mi wish if he was alive and mi cudda really buck him up.”

PROBLEM STEMS FROM CHILDHOOD

Clergyman Al Miller believes instances of murder-suicide are a result of the failure in how Jamaicans are socialised, and joins the call for a reintroduction of the values and attitudes programme former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson sought to implement during his premiership.

“Every society must train and develop its people to be able to manage and to cope and to overcome these challenges,” Miller told The Sunday Gleaner last week.

“When family structures break down, you will see what we are seeing – an increase in these kinds of things. The problem of murder-suicide, the problem of domestic violence is that it is not an adult problem, it is an adult manifestation of a problem from childhood where proper values, the principle of self-control were not properly inculcated.”

Speaking with The Gleaner in April 2021 at Digicel’s 20th anniversary service at Fellowship Tabernacle, Miller urged society to rally to the defence of vulnerable women and argued that legislation has not been sufficient to protect them from violent partners.

“ ... It has been a problem in our nation for years, at all levels of the society, not only where women are being beaten, but it’s also the way they are being raped, the way they are being molested. Also, it extends to where they are unfairly and unjustly treated in the workplace,” Miller said.

His comments came in the wake of the surfacing of a video in which a man was seen clobbering a woman with a stool and his fists.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com

• 8,714 domestic violence cases were reported to the Domestic Violence Intervention Centres in 2022. Of this figure, 6,221 were females.

• 2,757 children were directly or indirectly affected by incidents of domestic violence.

• Jamaica recorded nine cases of murder-suicide over the last five years – two in 2018; three in 2020; one in 2021 and 2022 each; and two so far since the start of the year.

• 27 cases of murder-suicide occurred in Jamaica from January 2007 to June 2017 – a rate of 0.92 per 100,000, which was higher than the international rate. In all cases the offenders were males.