Son angry as mother fights for life after caustic substance attack

FORT GEORGE, St Mary — Thirty-one-year-old Michael Baxter’s voice breaks as he describes the morning in August when his world changed. His mother, 51-year-old Natalie Walters, was doused with a caustic substance, allegedly by the man she had lived with for 20 years. “When I saw her, she was burnt,” Baxter told the Jamaica Observer. “One of her eyes was gone. Her face... They are going to cut her open again and again [for] plastic surgery, bone, and brain surgeries. She might not look the same,” he said. Walters met her alleged attacker in Fort George, Annotto Bay, about two decades ago. He had children from a previous relationship but Baxter says his mother stayed and took care of him.

Burn victim Natalie Walters.

“She fed him, washed his clothes, and she is now in the process of finishing building a house from the ground provisions she sold at the Coronation Market,” an angry Baxter said. Recalling some of the harsh treatment his mother allegedly faced, anger rose in Baxter’s voice. “Many times she would ‘run’ him but he would beg her to take him back, and she would. He was nice to everybody else but to my mother, he made her life hell,” Baxter further alleged. He claimed the attack on his mother was intended to be payback following rumours in the community and the man’s suspicion that Walters had been cheating on him. “He would be asking people if they were in his situation what they would do. He went as far as to ask the young man in the yard what time he goes to market and the time he comes back. He would watch the activities of the other persons in the yard, and he seized the opportunity when the yard was empty to make his move,” said Baxter. According to a police report, the incident took place around midnight, following an argument between Walters and her common-law husband. It is alleged that the man threw a substance on Walters, a mother of four. She was later found by neighbours who took her to Annotto Bay Hospital where she has been admitted. The St Mary police, who are investigating the matter, say they are following strong leads as they track the attacker. But that is not enough for Baxter. “He is still [free] while my mother fights for her life in hospital. I need this man to pay,” he declared. “For 20 years my mother took care of him. This is how he repays her? With burns, taking away her eye? He needs to be in a cell, not on the street,” Baxter insisted.