As the world gets ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, 22-year-old University of the West Indies student Khadeeja Taylor died on Thursday morning after what her mother firmly believes was a demonic possession.
Sitting with Newsday outside her Ibis Drive, Pleasantville, home as incense burnt inside on Thursday afternoon, Taylor’s mother Jennifer Sandy-Taylor, 52, said there was nothing that modern medicine could explain about what happened to her daughter.
She recounted her week-long ordeal that included Taylor attacking relatives, pulling her hair out and claiming to be the devil while speaking in unrecognisable languages.
“They could say what they want. That is not medical. When I watch my child, I seeing the devil in that child. The child mouth smelling stink from inside of there.”
Describing her daughter as being an angel, the single mother said there was no doubt in her mind that a demon possessed her through the ill-will of someone.
She said Taylor was staying with her employer, an older woman, at her St James home when two weeks ago she began exhibiting symptoms of being possessed. Taylor worked at a food establishment.
However, she said, she was immediately told of this.
Sandy-Taylor said she first recognised something was wrong when she picked up Taylor in Curepe on December 11, after she complained about having trouble eating and sleeping.
On the way home, she said Taylor blocked her eyes with her hands for the entire journey home.
She said Taylor did not listen to her younger sister when she said they arrived home, but insisted her mother be the one to tell her.
Sandy-Taylor said her daughter got out of the car and went directly to her plants, picking a Wonder of the World leaf and making tea.
“She there the whole day and she talking and crying and just talking to herself and mumbling whatever and praying and thing... Whole day this going on.”
She said at around 1.30 am the following morning, she woke up to Taylor opening her bedroom door. She said Taylor then attacked her when her behaviour was questioned.
“My stepdaughter came in, my son come up and thing and we had to hold her down. I call my sister. I say, girl, come. Something with your niece.
“My sister came, carried her somewhere, brought her back again, (and) she still going on.
“We bathe her... and she calm down a little bit. Then after, she start again.
“Fight. We fight, fight, fight.
“I fighting to hold her and she bite my breast.
“She fight, she fight, she fight.
“I telling my son, this is too much for us. I say let us get something and try and restrain her.”
Sandy-Taylor showed Newsday dozens of scars on her forearm that she said were from the attacks.
She said her daughter would become almost unrecognisable during her many violent spells.
“I ain’t telling you about all the different languages she talking... this, that, I don’t know. But she talking all different languages and saying she is the devil and doing devil signs and all kind of thing.”
She added Taylor would even begin pulling
