Dear Editor,

I don’t know whether this is newsworthy these days, but I was robbed on Grand Cayman this past weekend. Sometime between the time I went to bed around 11 p.m. on Saturday night (October 17th) and the time I woke at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning, at least one person cut the screen on the patio adjacent to the living room where I’m staying in Snug Harbour and entered the townhouse, stealing cash and a laptop belonging to the University College of the Cayman Islands.

Having just been part of the Silent Witness March on Saturday afternoon in Georgetown on the anniversary of Estella Scott-Roberts’ terrible death, I know that the matter could have been much, much worse. Perhaps it’s only because I’m so recently displaced onto Grand Cayman from the peaceful Brac that I wasn’t as emotionally prepared for a home invasion as I suppose I should have been.

In fact, I really thought I handled the matter quite well: cancelled my credit cards, alerted the UCCI authorities about the missing laptop, gave statements to the police, cleaned up the fingerprint dust after the CID team left, reassured all my friends from the Brac that I was just fine...

But then today (Monday) I had to return to the townhouse to retrieve a textbook that I had forgotten. Upon entering the dwelling, I saw that the curtains covering the sliding glass door to the back patio were open.

I had left them closed.

I stood there, wide-eyed and speechless. Yet I honestly felt as though I were screaming. Panic constricted my lungs, threatening to suffocate me.

I don’t think it took me long to remember that the realtor had called me earlier to let me know that prospective renters would be viewing the townhouse that morning. That realization allowed me to begin breathing and reclaim my senses.

But it’s now three hours later, and I still haven’t completely shaken the fear.

Other women have confided in me today that they too are living in fear. That burglaries and home invasions are much more frequent on Grand Cayman than the news media have indicated. And that petty crime is almost an expected fact of life in every district of the island. When the fingerprint detectives left my dwelling on Sunday morning, they were on their way to East End to investigate yet another burglary.

I left the United States to get away from that kind of madness. I have resided on Cayman Brac since 2004, repeatedly shocked by the crime reports from Grand Cayman, but oblivious to the creeping pervasiveness of wrongdoing on that island.

Just as the Agriculture Department has vigilantly worked to keep the Pink Mealybug from spreading from Grand Cayman to the Brac, I pray that the police and residents of Cayman Brac will work to keep this casual expectation of criminal activity from spreading to the Brac.

I’ve recently begun hearing about petty thefts beginning to emerge on the Brac and I caution all the residents of the Brac to please be aware that it’s a slippery slope. The small thefts may seem too insignificant to bother with today, but ANY casual attitude toward wrongdoing grows and festers with the passage of time.

Until one day, you awake to discover that your island paradise has been transformed from a safe haven into a battleground.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett