RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The man who mur­dered Lennox Williams had been a trust­ed fam­i­ly friend—so much so that he some­times slept over and even had a key to the premis­es.

Rel­a­tives said yes­ter­day that they had no idea what led him to kill Williams and stab 44-year-old nurs­ing as­sis­tant Lyn­don Gumbs at their Cen­tral Street, Vista­bel­la home on Car­ni­val Mon­day.

The at­tack­er, who works as a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer, is still on the run.

In a state­ment to po­lice, Gumbs said he was asleep at 2 am on Car­ni­val Mon­day when he felt a burn­ing sen­sa­tion on his face. He said he saw the sus­pect stand­ing over him with a black-han­dled knife with a four-inch blade. The as­sailant threat­ened to kill him.

Gumbs said Williams then emerged from his room and urged the sus­pect to calm down. En­raged, the sus­pect re­port­ed­ly at­tacked Gumbs by slash­ing him on the shoul­der and then stabbed Williams in the ab­domen be­fore flee­ing.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Williams’ broth­er, Ken­neth Williams, said he did not know what trig­gered the at­tack. He said his broth­er was stabbed af­ter telling the sus­pect to leave his house.

Re­call­ing the tragedy, Ken­neth said he was at home in the down­stairs por­tion of the house when his 23-year-old son, Kevin, woke him up, say­ing there was an al­ter­ca­tion up­stairs.

By the time he went up­stairs, the at­tack had al­ready tak­en place, and he saw his broth­er ly­ing mo­tion­less on the ground.

“He could not speak. My oth­er rel­a­tive (Gumbs) was bleed­ing from the face,” Ken­neth said.

He re­vealed that his son called para­medics, who ad­vised him to use a tow­el to stop the blood flow be­fore the am­bu­lance ar­rived. In the mean­time, Ken­neth placed Gumbs in their car and rushed him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Ken­neth said he had known the sus­pect for over three years, as he would vis­it Gumbs every oth­er week­end.

“I nev­er know him to get on like this or to be vi­o­lent,” Ken­neth said.

He said the sus­pect was al­so help­ful to the fam­i­ly.

“When my broth­er and our rel­a­tive were abroad last year, the sus­pect came home and cooked a pot of dog food for the dogs so my son could dish it out. That was how trust­ed he was,” Ken­neth re­called.

Gumbs has since been dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal but he was too dis­traught to speak when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion can con­tact Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.