Suspect held in throat-slitting murder

Police have held a 34-year-old labourer as a suspect in the murder of  a 41-year-old woman whose throat was slit Saturday evening. The suspect was held by police near his Buen Intento Village, Princes Town home yesterday afternoon. Juliet Victoria Cummings, a mother of four, was attacked by a man inside a maxi taxi in Princes Town around 7 pm on Saturday. Quick action by Homicide Division (Southern branch) police officers resulted in the arrest of the 34-year-old labourer. Up to late yesterday the man was being interrogated by detectives after he was arrested around noon in some bushes near the house where he lived. According to  police reports, it was around 7 pm  when Cummings, of Monkey Town Third Branch Road, New Grant boarded a maxi taxi at Nipdec car park, High Street, Princes Town. She was on her way to her home after working as a baby sitter in San Fernando. Cummings had taken her seat in the maxi when, according to police reports, the man followed her into the vehicle. Police said that while passengers were boarding the maxi, an argument broke out between the man and Cummings. The man whipped out a knife and began stabbing the woman. He then allegedly dragged the bleeding woman out of the maxi.

Passengers and members of the public looked on in horror as the man, according to the report, slit the woman’s  throat. Then in full view of onlookers, the man who at the time was holding the woman’s neck when he slit her throat, pushed her to the ground. She fell at the back of the maxi. Onlookers screamed as the man, according to the report,  fled the scene holding the blood-stained knife. The woman lay on the ground bleeding. She was pronounced dead on arrival at the San Fernando General Hospital. When Newsday visited Cummings’ home yesterday at Monkey Town, her mother, Eileen Mendoza, was too distraught to speak to the media. Cummings lived with her four children, Phicilla Cummings,13, Lorenzo Marcellin, 12, Wayne Marcellin, 10 and Selena Marcellin, eight. The suspect held  lived at Buen Intento Village about two miles away from where the woman was attacked. Cummings’ elder sister, Anacletus Silverthorn described her sister as a “quiet, humble person.” She said her sister  had been the victim of 14 terror-stricken years of verbal and physical abuse. And, with tears in her eyes, Silverthorn described the agony of seeing her sister’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the car park. “She was too decent a person to end up like that,” Silverthorn sobbed. She said that Cummings, who had separated from her first husband recently, was trying to secure a “comfortable life for her four children.” Police confirmed that Cummings had recently taken out a restraining order in the magistrate’s court against a male relative. Silverthorn  said the family would now have to care for Cummings’ children. A post mortem will be conducted on the body today after which police are expected to charge the man with murder. He will appear in the Princes Town Magistrate’s court.