Hours after disfiguring his neighbour’s face with a cutlass, 33-year-old Stephon Sinnette was found dead at his Chatham home on Wednesday.
Sinnette, of Chatham South Trace, was covered in blood when he was discovered by police investigating a chopping incident which left Ricardo Rodriguez, 55, injured.
His killing has been classified as a murder.
According to reports, both men were quarrelling in a neighbour’s yard when Sinnette took up a cutlass and chopped Rodriguez on the face.
As Rodriguez fell to the ground, Sinnette chopped him on his shoulder.
After running home, Rodriguez was taken to the Point Fortin Area Hospital by his sister, where he was treated and transferred to the San Fernando General Hospital.
His common-law-wife, Cindy Hewitt, reported the incident to the Point Fortin police and when South Western Division Task Force, led by Insp Anderson Pariman, entered Sinnette’s house, they found his body on the floor of the living room.
It appeared he was in his bedroom when he was shot in his chest and then hobbled into the living room.
Although Rodriguez is warded at hospital under police guard, investigators said he was an unlikely suspect due to the severity of his injuries.
His brother, Alfonso Rodriguez, said his bother’s forehead, sinus and upper lip was sliced open during the attack. Speaking at their home yesterday he said Sinnette had mental problems.
He said his brother was heading to his garden around 1 pm when he confronted Sinnette who had broken several glass bottles in the road.
“Between 1 pm and 2 pm I heard the calamity outside and when I went to the door I saw somebody saying my brother got chopped.
“I came outside and I saw him (Rodriguez) running home with his hands covering his nose and blood gushing from his face.
“He came in the yard and we washed him off and I called my sister, Phillipa, to take him to the hospital because she has a car,” Alfonso said.
None of the neighbours recalled seeing Sinnette after the incident or heard gunshots.
Although they could not say who wanted him dead they said he had threatened several other villagers.
In a separate incident, a 36-year-old La Brea man was warded in a serious condition at the San Fernando General Hospital after being ambushed and shot outside his home yesterday.
Police said around 2 am, Keston Franklin, 36, of Southern Main Road, Vessigny, was exiting his car when a gunman ran up to him and fired several shots before running off.
Neighbours called La Brea police but when they arrived Franklin was already taken to hospital. No motive has been established for the shooting.
‘My son not mad’
Speaking by telephone yesterday, Sinnette’s mother, Evelyn Zephryne, denied her son had mental problems, saying she had him examined by a psychiatrist recently.
She admitted he caused disturbances in the village whenever he drank alcohol but added he was harmless. She said it had to be that someone provoked him.
“They are lying. My daughter and I called the police some months ago and we got them to bring an ambulance because he was getting on bad.
“They took him to the hospital and let the doctors check him and I asked the doctor for a letter for him to see a psychiatrist.
“We got a date and we saw the psychiatrist who talked to him and she said nothing was wrong with him,” Zephryne said.
She said an autopsy done yesterday showed he died from a gunshot to the chest.