TRURO, Westmoreland — “I am lonely, afraid, weak. I don’t know how I am going to hold up. Everything is just bad,” said Lela Richards, whose youngest daughter, 29-year-old Sydoney Martin, died from chop wounds on Tuesday. The wounds were allegedly inflected during an altercation with a man three days earlier.

“I am feeling terrible. She lives the longest here with me. All of the other rest moved out long time and gone. Me and she lived here with the two grandkids, and she gone now,” said a distraught Richards during a visit to her house in rural Westmoreland on Wednesday.

Martin was a travel agent at the time of her death. She and her daughter lived with Richards and another of the elderly woman’s grandchildren.

Dwayne Anglin, a 42-year-old businessman who lives in the same community of Truro, was initially charged with wounding with intent. He was later charged with the murder of Martin after she died. His court date is being finalised.

The grieving mother has taken no comfort from her daughter’s alleged attacker being in police custody.

“Oh my God. I lost my daughter and him locked up. It is so hard. I can’t manage. Locking him up can’t bring back my daughter. It can’t bring her back,” stated Richards, who broke down in tears.

According to the police, about 3:30 am on Sunday, Martin, who it is believed was under the influence of alcohol, approached Anglin’s gate and banged on his car with stones. An altercation reportedly developed between the two. A tussle quickly escalated into a fight. It is reported that it was at this point that a machete in Anglin’s possession was used to chop Martin several times.

Richards said she was in bed when she heard slapping sounds, as if someone was being beaten. She said she got up, looked through the window and saw her daughter’s car in the yard, parked at an unusual location.

Richards said she went outside and was looking up the road when she heard her daughter crying out. She said she ran to the location and saw Anglin standing over her daughter who had chop wounds to her head and other parts of her body.

She said her daughter, clutching the man’s head, asked, “What mi do you?”

“The Rasta man said to me, ‘Let she let go mi hair.’ So I pulled Sydoney hand out of his hair and held on to her and carried her here [home]. I called my son and he came and took her to the hospital,” Richards told the Jamaica Observer.

She said Anglin clutched a visor in his hand, which he said Martin had broken from his vehicle.

“I can’t believe it’s just a little visor that they chopped her up for,” bemoaned Richards.

Martin was rushed to Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital where she was admitted in serious condition. She was transferred to the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in St James where she died on Tuesday.

Richards said the incident took such a toll on her she had been unable to make the journey to visit her daughter at CRH.

“I was so weak. I had to beg others to go for me — my son and my brother — and I asked my neighbour over there and they followed them,” she said.

“In the evening, after my brother and my son went there and said they looked for her, when they reached part way on their way back the hospital called them and told them to come back. When they went back, she died,” stated Richards.

She said Martin’s daughter, who will be celebrating her 12th birthday on November 23, has been left reeling from her mother’s death.

“She’s taking it very hard. From Sunday until now she hasn’t eaten a piece of food. All she does is cry,” said Richards.