Special education teacher gunned down

"My niece shouldn't dead like that. Vanessa is not a problem person. Vanessa should never dead like that, she never deserved to dead so."

That was the mournful declaration from Winsome Williams-Maxwell on Thursday, one day after her niece, 32-year-old special education teacher Vanessa Williams, was gunned down along with her boyfriend, 36-year-old taxi operator Matthew Chin, at their home in Guinep Tree Lane, Montpelier, St James. According to reports, about 10:12 p.m., Williams and Chin arrived home when they were attacked and shot by unknown assailants. Chin was found slumped over the steering wheel of his Toyota Voxy motor car, while Williams was found laying on the ground near the vehicle. They were subsequently pronounced dead at hospital.

When THE WEEKEND STAR spoke with Williams-Maxwell, she was barely able to keep her emotions in check as she recounted her last interaction with her niece hours before the younger woman's death.

"The last time me and her talk, she was coming in from church, from the tent meeting at Mt Carey [the community neighbouring Montpelier]. When she did a pass, she call to me, and I said, 'Come nuh,' and she said, 'Not today,' and the next thing I heard was a barrage of gunshots, and I never know it was she [that got shot]," Williams-Maxwell recalled.

"I don't know of Vanessa having any problem with anybody, and if you walk around the area, you can ask everybody about Vanessa. When she comes in, she will be like, 'Auntie, you cook?' and sometimes I will say to her, 'Come in and mek we chat people,'" Williams-Maxwell added. "She was fun-loving, easy to get along with, and you don't have no problem with her."

Williams, a graduate of Cambridge High School in St James, taught at Knockalva Technical High School in Ramble, Hanover, where she worked with special-needs students for approximately three years. She was also a member of the Mt Carey Seventh-day Adventist Church. Family member Shauna-Lee Wright recalled that, in addition to her teaching duties, Williams was generally a helpful person who never refused aid to friends or strangers.

"Vanessa would go around the place and deliver soup to shut-ins. If you have a child going back to school and you didn't have anything, or if you have a child and that child can't read properly, she would jump in and take up that on her head," said Wright. "I was in hospital in November 2024, and she took time from work and came to visit me in the hospital. She was always very supportive; if you asked her for help, you could count on her, and Vanessa never said no."

Mushtac Ricketts, one of Williams' fellow teachers at Knockalva, described her as an educator who made an impact among her students and co-workers.

"It is a very traumatising feeling right now, a frightening feeling that I have. I was not expecting this, because she and I were talking yesterday (Wednesday) in the day, and I was expecting a call from her this morning (Thursday) because we always have that kind of friendship," said Ricketts. "She was a very fun-loving person, and you would hardly ever see her in a dull moment. She was very good at what she did, because she would be the one who would try to assist her students and get them to learn things."

Williams' and Chin's deaths occurred roughly one week after the St James Police Division reported that it had recorded 23 murders up to June 14, the lowest for a five-month period in 20 years, and a 68.5 per cent reduction compared to the 73 murders recorded over the corresponding period in 2024.