KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As a 16-year-old Cou­va school­boy re­mains in po­lice cus­tody for stab­bing Mara­bel­la labour­er Ak­il Sylvester to death on Fri­day, neigh­bours are call­ing for his re­lease, say­ing he was de­fend­ing his moth­er who was be­ing se­vere­ly beat­en.

Po­lice said the boy was tak­en to the South Oropouche Book­ing Cen­tre for safe­keep­ing af­ter seek­ing med­ical at­ten­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port, the 35-year-old moth­er was in down­town Cou­va around 2 pm prepar­ing to re­turn home, when on en­ter­ing her ve­hi­cle, Sylvester, 36, of Old Train­line Road, Mara­bel­la, en­tered and ac­com­pa­nied her home.

Up­on ar­rival at the woman’s apart­ment at Isaac Set­tle­ment, Cou­va, an ar­gu­ment broke out. Sylvester al­leged­ly picked up a cut­lass and be­gan to choke and as­sault her. Min­utes lat­er, the 16-year-old son saw the com­mo­tion, grabbed a knife, and stabbed Sylvester sev­er­al times about the body. Sylvester even­tu­al­ly fell to the floor and died.

The moth­er, her son, and her niece went to the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion and re­port­ed the in­ci­dent. Po­lice then went to the apart­ment and saw Sylvester ly­ing on his stom­ach in a pool of blood in the liv­ing room. He was mo­tion­less and un­re­spon­sive, with ap­par­ent wounds to the head and back.

Cen­tral Di­vi­sion’s In­sp Con­liffe, In­sp Joseph, W/In­sp Stephen-James, Sgt Smith, WPC Ram­per­sad, and PC Hen­ry of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions: Re­gion III re­spond­ed to the scene.

A Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer vis­it­ed the scene and ex­am­ined the body be­fore or­der­ing a trans­fer to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James. Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors at­tached to the Homi­cide Bu­reau re­trieved the cut­lass and black-han­dled knife used in the in­ci­dent.

The vic­tim’s 16-year-old son was then de­tained and cau­tioned about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Both the woman and her son were tak­en to the Cou­va Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty for med­ical treat­ment.

Yes­ter­day, neigh­bours told the Sun­day Guardian that the teenag­er was a “re­al nice” and qui­et per­son, and that they had noth­ing bad to say about him.

Re­call­ing Fri­day’s hor­ror, they said it ap­peared his moth­er and Sylvester, who had been in a re­la­tion­ship, got in­to an ar­gu­ment in her ve­hi­cle. She ran in­side and locked the door, but Sylvester kicked it in and be­gan at­tack­ing her with the cut­lass. Neigh­bours said they heard the moth­er scream­ing for help as the boy came home and saw Sylvester beat­ing the woman.

“He did that to pro­tect his moth­er. He risked his life to pro­tect her. I hope jus­tice pre­vails and he is re­leased be­cause no one here has any­thing bad to say about him,” a neigh­bour said.

As for the re­la­tion­ship, they said there were fre­quent “cuss-outs”, and it ap­peared the woman want­ed to leave the man. Dur­ing pre­vi­ous ar­gu­ments, she would run out of the house and lock her­self in her ve­hi­cle.

They said the woman’s oth­er sons were not home at the time of the in­ci­dent. Neigh­bours are call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to pro­vide coun­selling to the fam­i­ly.