(Trinidad Express) AN autopsy on a 56-year-old woman who died two weeks ago after she was found unresponsive on a tiled concrete staircase in her Princes Town home found that she died after ingesting a poisonous substance.
Debra Duff was pronounced dead at the hospital on April 24.
Detectives initially suspected that Duff died from injuries sustained in a fall on the staircase at her home on St Croix Road.
However, a senior detective of the Southern Police Division told the Express on Friday that the findings of the autopsy has led officers to conclude that death was self-inflicted.
A police report said that Duff was at the house when at around 10.30 p.m. she had an argument with a 60-year-old male relative.
The report said the man told police that he and Duff argued over her not answering her phone.
She sprayed him with pepper spray on his face, and he ran off to the upper floor of the house and locked the door.
Police said that man told them that Duff followed him and banged on the door to the room, demanding that he open it.
The man reported that shortly after he heard a noise like a crash.
When he checked, he found her on a tiled concrete staircase that leads to a living room on the lower floor of the house.
An alarm was raised and paramedics of the Emergency Health Services responded and found Duff unresponsive.
Paramedics took her to the Princes Town District Health Facility where she was pronounced dead shortly after midnight.
Officers of the Southern Division Task Force, Princes Town CID, and other units responded.
PC Toll is continuing investigations.