A woman suffered diminished sight in one eye following an attack by a burglar. Patricia Minus-Swaby recalled the terror of June 22, 2010 when an assailant attacked her as she slept on the living room sofa of her Infant View Road home. She said, "It's just a nightmare that keeps coming back," recalling how the intruder placed a pillow over her face and started to pummel her. Prosecutors say that the intruder is Teko Burrows.
He is on trial before Acting Justice Wayne Munroe on charges of burglary, armed robbery and causing grievous bodily harm. He has pleaded not guilty. Minus-Swaby, who never saw the culprit, said she fought the burglar off as she screamed for her sons Omar and Tamal. She said Omar responded to her cries for help first and got into a fight with the burglar. Minus-Swaby, an executive assistant, said she remained in hospital four days after the attack and was referred to a plastic surgeon.
She said doctors strengthened the prescription in the left lens of her glasses because of weakened vision in that eye. Minus-Swaby no longer lives in the house she called home for 54 years. Her son Omar Butler testified via a video-link from the Bahamas Consulate in Miami, Florida. Butler, who works for the U.S. Air Force, said he responded to his mother's screams and got into a "fierce struggle" with the intruder. Butler said the glass table top and china were broken during the fight with the man whom he claimed he recognized from earlier that night.
Butler said he observed the man, who was sitting on the wall of his mother's home, after they returned from a graduation ceremony. As a member of the Air Force, Butler said, "We are trained to recognize the out of ordinary, the suspicious. It can boil down to a life and death situation." Butler said he disarmed one intruder before another emerged holding his brother at gunpoint. Butler said he chased the intruders until he lost sight of them as they escaped through a yard on Tyler Street. Butler identified the defendant as the intruder in a photo line-up. Before viewing the line-up, he met with a police sketch artist. The case continues today. Anthony Delaney is the prosecutor and Alex Dorsett represents Burrows, who is on remand at Her Majesty's Prisons.
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