NJ mom vacationing in Turks and Caicos brutally beaten by ‘growling’ local who claimed to be taxi driver: ‘Face to face with evil’
A New Jersey mom vacationing in Turks and Caicos this month was allegedly beaten by a man claiming to be a taxi driver in a brutal attack in which she said she came “face to face with evil.”
American tourist Suyapa Ramos recalled how she fought for her life on March 10 when she was attacked inside the car of a man who said he would give her a lift back to her hotel.
“It was so scary to feel yourself so close to death,” the 48-year-old mother told ABC 7 on Thursday.
Ramos was able to escape, but the vicious assault left her with cuts, bruises and eye damage.
She said she stepped into the stranger’s car after she couldn’t find a late-night taxi.
“I believe after 10 they don’t run, and that was something I found out the hard way,” the Jersey City resident told the station. “I trusted someone who said they were a taxi.”
When the suspect, identified as Davidson Martin, offered her a ride back, nothing indicated he’d violently launch at her inside the car moments later, the mom said.
But within seconds, he allegedly began attacking her.
“That was the scariest thing I had to encounter — to come face to face with evil,” Ramos said. “Pure evil.”
“While he was beating me, he was growling at me, he was trying to poke my eye out,” she added.
She was eventually able to break free and got to a hospital with the help of good Samaritans.
“I fought for my life and managed to run to the road and flag a car down and these angels took me to the hospital,” Ramos said on a GoFundMe page she set up.
Local police began investigating the case after she reached the medical facility and later arrested Davidson, according to the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force.
Davidson, 29, is facing a charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm, local authorities said.
Meanwhile, back in the US, Ramos wrote on the GoFundMe page that she suffered damage to her eye and the left side of her face that would require further medical treatment.
“What seemed like a place of paradise on my last day turned into a complete nightmare,” Ramos wrote.
The US State Department issued a travel advisory for Turks and Caicos last summer, warning tourists vacationing there to do so added caution because of crime.
“Local medical care and criminal investigative capabilities are limited,” the department stated.
