The 71-year-old clung to an equally overwrought female relative behind whose shoulders she occasionally hid her face in a bid to stop herself from staring at the stomach-churning sight.
The corpse of Donavan Murray, the seventh of her 10 children, had been found at the entrance to the premises of which he was caretaker.
The headless body of Murray, who is said to have been in his early 40s, lay on its stomach with its arms outstretched, clad in a pair of underpants.
A stunned James Wade, another occupant of the premises, was the first to witness the gory scene as he hurried out to work shortly after 5.30 am.
He immediately recognised the body as that of Murray.
“As I see the body, I started to pick up that it was him because I remember the underpants that he was wearing last night,” said Wade, still in shock more than two hours after the discovery.
“I couldn’t believe, because is just last night he borrowed a cutlass from me. He said he was going to chop out some bush ’round the back this morning,” said Wade.
He said on discovering the body, he immediately called another male resident who alerted the police.
On Saturday, as police officers scoured the large, overgrown yard for Murray’s missing head, his mother wept bitterly, questioning his killer’s motives.
