EIGHTEEN year-old Mesha-Gaye Tomlin probably had a premonition that death was near. Only two hours before she was mercilessly stabbed by two men near the Chinese Cemetery along Waltham Park Road in Kingston on Tuesday, Tomlin – a lower sixth form student at The Queens High School – made what was described as one of her most profound remarks on the current crime situation now plaguing the island during a history class.

“She said ‘Sir, I am convinced that our present leaders do not have the ability nor the willingness to deal with the criminals on the streets’,” the school’s dean of discipline and history teacher, Vivian Cox, told the Observer.

He, however, did not realise the message Tomlin was trying to convey until they received the sad news shortly before 6:00 Wednesday evening.

“I did not believe the part of the message that she died; I accepted that she was hurt but was hoping that by the time I reached school in the morning I would get some better news,” Cox said yesterday.

The teacher’s hope that Tomlin would survive was, however, shattered.

“.And that was when I returned to what was said to me in class,” Cox explained. “I am not sure if it was a premonition but all I can say her statement was very profound.”

Yesterday, there were different versions as to how the incident occurred.

According to the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), Tomlin was stabbed after she refused to obey the demand of a robber to hand over her bag and cellular phone. The CCN said this was followed by a struggle between the two during which Tomlin was stabbed. She was later taken to the Kingston Public Hospital where she died.

But Tomlin’s mother, Irene Montaque, said she was told that the incident began in a route taxi in which her daughter was a passenger.

“I heard that she along with the two guys were in the taxi when they demanded the phone and they began to fight,” Montaque said. “They came off the taxi at the Chinese Cemetery and she proceeded to run after them but collapsed.”

She said eyewitnesses rushed to her assistance and put her on another taxi that was passing by, which took her to hospital.

“At that time she was not dead because the taxi driver said she spoke to him right throughout the journey asking him if she would be alright and she was the one who gave him the number to notify us of the incident,” Montaque said. She added that she thought her daughter was serious but would survive.

“I knew that it was serious but I did not get the feeling that she was dead,” she said.

She noted that it was on her arrival at the KPH she started to get “a funny feeling”.

“I met a gentleman and we engaged in a conversation and he asked me if I was there about the schoolgirl, and when I reached the emergency unit and saw the crowd of nurses I knew something was wrong,” said a grieving Montaque.

“I proceed to run but the nurses held me and after much coaxing told me of the bad news,” she added.

Whatever version is true, however, the reality is that the older of her two daughters is dead. For her, life and home won’t be the same. “Right now I want to run away because I can’t think of living without Mesha. life hard,” she sobbed, as she looked across the couch at her other daughter Alicia Murdock as they sat in the living-room of the family home at Henderson Road Avenue.

For Alicia, the pain was unbearable, and too much for her to speak. “I am just not feeling well,” the Wolmer’s student told the Observer.

Mesha wanted to become a lawyer and was pursuing ‘A’Levels as part of her dream.

“She was a thinker, a bright girl,” said the school’s sixth form co-ordinator Christine Buckley. “She was one of the most popular girls and served as an inspiration to others.”

Yesterday, the students at the school showed mixed emotions. While the majority went about their daily routines, some sixth formers who were sometimes in small groups, chatted among themselves. They were not allowed to speak to reporters.

Meanwhile, a photograph of Tomlin, glued to the notice board across the library on the ground floor was the centre of attraction. “Oh God, she really died,” said a second-form student. “I’ve spoken to her before,” added another.

Buckley, in the meanwhile, said those traumatised as a result of the incident had, earlier in the day, received counselling from members of the Guidance Counsellors Association.