A 70-year-old Crane, West Coast Demerara man was chopped to death around 10:30 am yesterday and a 16-year-old who has admitted to committing the horrendous act is in police custody.
Reports are that Eustace Williams, called ‘Patrick’ and ‘Jacket,’ sustained about 14 chop wounds, including five to the back of his head, three to his back and one to his feet.
His body was discovered in a pool of blood in the kitchen in the lower flat of his two-storey concrete house.
The suspect was captured shortly after among some thick bushes behind the house.
Reports are that the suspect had to be rescued by police from angry residents. The police had to take him away in the vehicle and then to the station fast.”
Neighbours were unaware that the chopping was taking place because of the noise from a ‘hiab’ truck that was parked in front of a building under construction opposite the scene.
The construction workers, although they heard no noise, became suspicious that something was amiss after they saw the boy, who was covered in blood, trying to scale the concrete fence to escape.
When he saw the men he jumped down and ran towards the back where he hid among the bushes.
The men alerted the neighbours, including an off-duty police corporal. The officer who wrenched open the door using a hammer made the gruesome discovery and responded: “Oh God, this man dead!”
He then told everyone to step back because it was a “murder scene” and he reported the matter to the Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station.
The suspect somehow sustained a chop to his foot.
Reports are that the youth has told police that he went into the house for “something” and Williams tried to put him out and he got angry and started chopping him.
But neighbours believe that the murder was “premeditated.” They told this newspaper that “some boys who does lime at the street corner saw him sharpening a cutlass” a few days ago.
They asked the boy what he was doing with the cutlass but he did not answer. Police recovered the murder weapon at the scene.
The dead man’s cousin from New Road, Vreed-en-Hoop who wished not to be named, told Stabroek News that she received a call from his sister-in-law from another village that he had been murdered. When she got to the scene there was a large crowd and his body was still there but she did not get to see it.
She recalled that the suspect grew up with a relative of
Williams. He reportedly started “behaving bad.” Reports are that he was also indulging in drug use.
About one month ago, the relative packed his belongings and her husband took him to Williams’ home so he could stay there. But Williams, who lived alone and was the father of a number of children, refused to accept him.
He then got a job at a tyre shop and after he told the employer that he had no place to stay, the man allowed him to sleep in the shop.
Williams, in his younger days, worked as a pork-knocker. One of his hands suffered a disability after it was broken during a robbery.
Up to last year he worked as a watchman at the Aracari Resort at Versailles, West Bank Demerara.
Yesterday afternoon, police revisited the scene with the suspect.
