PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad--A 27-year-old woman who has been described by neighbours as having a history of mental illness stabbed a pensioner of Oropune Gardens, Piarco to death Saturday.
According to neighbours, 73-year-old Stephen “Peow” Marshall of Fifth Avenue Extension was stabbed on the left side of his neck by a female relative who entered his bedroom.
Residents heard screams emanating from the pensioner’s apartment at around 11:30am.
Upon investigating, they found Marshall’s five grandchildren in the apartment unharmed. Marshall, however, was bleeding from a wound to his neck.
The woman was also seen covered in blood and holding a knife.
At the time of the incident, Marshall’s wife, Indra Dial, was at the nearby shop and on hearing the children’s screams rushed over only to see her husband bleeding.
The couple’s elder sister, who had just returned home, jumped out of her car when she heard the commotion coming from her father’s home. When she went inside she saw the woman standing over her father and she tried to get the knife away from her.
The police were notified and an ambulance arrived around noon, however, Marshall succumbed to his injuries.
A resident said Marshall’s life may have been saved if someone had used their car to transport him to hospital but they did not want blood from the wounded man in their vehicle.
The woman was detained by police.
Residents said the woman was “mentally unstable” and there were past episodes when she was good and other times when she “went off.”
One resident said: “You can’t control a mentally unstable person. There’s no time to tell when they would ‘trip off.’ I have been around mentally unstable people, at the end of the day she was family and they have to help her.”
The resident said, however, the incident was not something people were expecting.
A friend of the family said the woman was prescribed medication for her condition but was not taking it at the time because she went through evaluation, “caught back” herself, was back to normal and was working.
Another resident said the woman did not hold down a job for long because of her condition. A resident said Marshall was a quiet person and enjoyed rearing picoplats, a hobby he shared with other bird fanciers in the neighbourhood. ~ Trinidad and Tobago Guardian ~
