It was meant to be a night of fun capped with restful sleep. But just over a year ago, one man’s world was turned upside down after he said goodbye to a guest.
The incident took place in Bocage, Castries, where the evening had been filled with the usual laughter of a friendly visit. By 10:00 p.m., they had called it a night. However, when the host stepped out of his home for a few minutes, he was unaware of the danger lurking nearby.
“To be quite honest, I’m not certain, but I think I did lock the door, because that’s a habit I have—when I walk out of the door I know I always lock it, even if I wasn’t going too far. I went a short distance up the road to drop my friend off at their vehicle. We stayed there for a while chatting. When I got back in again, I used the key. I entered and went straight to bed,” the victim told St. Lucia Times under anonymity, recounting the unfortunate situation that left him with lasting mental scars.
“I normally keep a radio by my bedside. When I woke up in the morning, I stretched my hand to turn on the radio. It’s kind of funny looking back, but I kept touching and touching but wasn’t feeling the radio. When I opened my eyes, I realised the radio was gone. It’s at that point it hit me, my place was broken into. That stuff was taken, including money.”
The burglary, he explained, did not occur while he was asleep. Instead, he realised later that the break-in must have happened the night before, while he was seeing off his friend. After re-entering the apartment, he had found his wallet on the floor but assumed he had dropped it himself. He picked it up and placed it in a drawer, only to discover the next morning that it had been emptied by someone else.
Studies have shown that many view their homes not only as extensions of themselves but also as sanctuaries—a space meant to protect both themselves and their families. When that space is violated, the impact goes far beyond financial loss, as victims grapple with an overwhelming sense of intrusion.
“It wasn’t about what was missing. I’ve discussed this with other victims, and they share the same sentiment. It’s like you instantly feel violated. That somebody came into your space and they went through your stuff. There’s a sense of violation. You feel traumatised by that, for days, weeks and months afterwards,” the Bocage break-in victim shared.
“I did make a report to the police but you just feel every time you enter your home, you have that creepy feeling. Just the fact that somebody who you don’t know entered your space. I think that’s what stayed with me for a long time, and I know other people who share those sentiments. You just feel violated,” he added.
Despite Saint Lucia’s idyllic scenery, rising crime has become a concern in the country. And, like anywhere else, thieves conceal themselves waiting to make someone a new victim. Robbery statistics show fluctuations in their frequency over the past decade. Between January to November 2023, police statistics indicate 562 reports of burglaries and 223 reports of robberies, compared to 841 burglaries in 2013, and 216 robberies. However, locals do observe, particularly during the lead-up to Christmas, that a prevalence of burglaries remains a sore point for everyone, including local police.Now, seemingly yearly, videos circulate of small shops being burglarised, and harrowing tales—some even fatal, like the killing of a delivery worker, Stephan “Tallboy” Eudovique —hit the media. News of home break-ins, however, often do not usually extend beyond community gossip and rarely do they reach the broader public. Despite their quiet nature, conversations with victims reveal the lasting emotional scars left by such intrusions, with some victims so deeply affected that they choose never to speak of the incidents again.
For this article, other victims of home invasions were contacted. Women who’d been at home at the time an intruder made it into their houses, having undergone extensive counselling to cope with the lingering psychological effects of fending off criminals, were emotionally unable to revisit their experiences for fear of reliving the trauma.
It’s a harsh reality that many find difficult to overcome. Often, entire neighbourhoods are targeted by thieves rather than individual households. In his interview with St. Lucia Times, the Bocage man revealed that this was the case in his area at the time. While the perpetrator was never caught to his knowledge, he believes there’s a chance he encountered him again.
“I heard about a few people in the neighbourhood that time having break-ins. And one time, I actually saw a guy walking with a sack near a bushy area. I called my neighbour and then he came up from town, I think he saw the guy passing, he kind of chased him. When he went to look in the bush, he saw some utensils, some electronics and other items, so we called the police,” he recounted. The ordeal, he admitted, took him several months to process, and he eventually stopped following up on the investigation.
Crime remains a significant concern in Saint Lucia. While much of the public discourse focuses on the physical threats posed by criminal activity, the mental toll on a population unable to protect itself from rising crime is another pressing issue that demands attention.
Police stats can be found here:https://www.govt.lc/media.govt.lc/www/pressroom/news/attachments/saint-lucia-crime-analysis–jan-to-nov—1-.pdfhttps://stats.gov.lc/subjects/society/crime/crime-statistics-by-type-and-outcome-2013/
Photo: Stock image
