As residents of Free and Easy try to come to grips with the shock of the heinous murder of a 29-year-old mother of four at the hands of the father of her children, the community cannot help comparing how the man’s brutal act of violence mirrors a tragic pattern established by his own brother years earlier.
On Sunday, 35-year-old James Lord fatally stabbed Alexis Harris, in Free and Easy on the West Bank Demerara before attempting to take his own life.
The crime took place in front of the couple’s now traumatised children and other family members. Lord also stabbed his nephew who attempted to intervene.
Sadly, this tragic event marks a grim continuation of a cycle of violence within the Lord family.
Lord’s actions are eerily reminiscent of those committed by his brother, Richard Lord, who in 2013 murdered his two young children – a 5-year-old and 2-year-old – and severely injured his wife, 20-year-old Natasha Huston.
The brother later died by suicide, leaving a trail of devastation that resonates hauntingly with James’ current crime.
Several villagers also pointed to actions by the father of the two men, who also died by suicide, allegedly to avoid facing the consequences of persons he abused.
“It’s like a curse!” Harris’ sisters Abiola Harris and Natasha Harris, remarked of the situation during an interview with this publication on Monday.
James’ violent outburst and subsequent suicide attempt have drawn attention to the alarming patterns of domestic violence that persist across generations. As the community grapples with the shock of this latest tragedy, the Lord family’s history stands as a sobering reminder of the deep and often devastating impacts of domestic abuse.
“Pain, I’m in serious pain, my heart is hurting,” Harris’ mother Sherry tearfully remarked. Sherry got the news of her daughter’s murder while out on an errand. When she made it home, her daughter was already dead lying in pool of blood.
At the time of her death, Harris had been living with her sister, Abiola for the past few months, after she left the Hill Foot, Soesdyke-Linden Highway home she shared with James in an attempt to escape abuse she had been receiving from him.
“He beat her up on the highway so she come down and stay by me. She has been here over two months and something. She come and start to work with me and my husband. This was the second time [James came to visit],” Abiola shared.
Harris ’family shared that throughout their 15-year relationship, Lord has had a history of abusing the woman, and at one point she received a restraining order against him. However, faced with the economic constraints of taking care of four children on her own, Harris eventually returned to her life with Lord.
“They go to court all. He beat she and threaten she. But he come and he beg back, and by she have the four children she took him back and move back to the highway,” Abiola explained.
On Sunday, Lord was in Free and Easy under the guise of coming to visit his children. While the murder came as a shock to everyone, the family firmly believes that the murder was premeditated and Lord came with the intent of harming Harris given that Lord arrived at the Free and Easy residence with the murder weapon already in a bag on him.
“He said he was bringing money for the children, but he had a plan. He buy a knife and had it in a haversack. He come with the intention to kill,” Sherry noted.
Now the family remembers Alexis as a quiet peaceful person, who did not deserve to have her life cut short so gruesomely.
