By Elesha George
Gwendolyn “Gwen” Williams, the 49-year-old woman who was found dead in a vehicle near Pot Works Dam last Tuesday is being remembered by residents in her community for being the “life of the party”.
“She was a very vibrant and energetic person. She was full of vibes,” a shopkeeper who chose to go by the name Blacky, told Observer.
The woman recalled how Gwen used to dance on her porch on the weekends and made everyone laugh.
“Once she heard music, she made it her own. Music was a comfort to her. She had a grandson that was the apple of her eye and he was her dancing partner,” she shared.
A longtime friend who knew Gwen for two decades expressed shock on hearing the news, stating: “It gave me an instant headache. I saw her in my sleep the whole night last night. I just couldn’t imagine it happened.
“When the news broke, somebody send it in a chat that I’m in, but the only thing they say is that a body was found and then time goes by, somebody said the person is from All Saints. Then the name come to me but when the name come, she still wasn’t a thought, I wasn’t thinking about her … then when the picture came, I got an instant headache,” the woman explained.
“I haven’t seen her for the past couple of weeks and it’s a while we haven’t seen her but she used to send her brother to buy food. She does come on a Wednesday when I used to do fungi, she’d come on the weekend to get her season rice and so, but I haven’t seen her for a while,” she added.
“It’s somebody that you would have loved; a free spirit. She will give you her last clothes on her back,” she remembered, adding: “She lively, she bold … she nuh fraid nothing.”
Two male neighbours concurred that the deceased was “a lively woman, always enjoy she self, always dance and so”.
The friend chuckled, as she recalled the last conversation, she had with Gwen was when she travelled to Barbados too get her younger daughter’s Green Card and they were discussing the high-ticket prices. She wanted her daughter, who is now a fifth form student at the Antigua Girls’ High School, to write her CXC exams before migrating to be with her father in the United States.
“It’s sad that she wouldn’t even see that,” the woman remarked.
The mother of two and grandmother of one died under mysterious circumstances. The grandfather of her younger daughter confirmed that, the day before she disappeared, Gwen had sent a message to her teenage daughter, telling her how much she would miss her. He said the family thought nothing of the message until Gwen failed to return home. They then filed a missing person’s report and presented the message to the police who went searching for her.
It was not until the day after that her body was discovered by a coal burner who saw a CRV parked in near the Pot Works Dam in an area locals refer to as Dam Road.
Gwen, who lived with her partner at the time of her passing, moved to Antigua from St Kitts years ago and had been living in John Hughes until last year when she moved to Mac Pond, All Saints. Neighbours said she never let anything stop her from remaining positive.
The deceased left behind an adult daughter and a teenage daughter who has been staying with her grandfather since her mother’s death.
The police are continuing their investigations into the matter.