‘Demon’ kills, burns ‘Angel’

“He is a demon,” said Ghanit Boatswain in describing his son’s killer. Sheldon and his close male relative were alone at home yesterday when they got into a fight that ended in his death. Nobody witnessed the killing, but Boatswain’s slit throat and a living room, kitchen, and backyard smeared with blood was evidence enough to tell the tale. “It still smelling fresh,” said one of his sisters as she mopped the kitchen floor for a second time with disinfectant.

A neighbour returning home from a funeral at about 12.45pm said she arrived soon after the police arrived on the scene. “When I came, it had plenty police cars, and I saw them asking him (the killer) to put his hands through the gate to arrest him,” she said. “I hear him say that ‘I was choking him (Sheldon) and all of a sudden blood start to flow out of his neck’.” While that was happening, the neighbour said she went around the house, scaled the fence, and saw Boatswain’s body burning on a galvanize pyre in the back of his home.

“He was already burning when I reach, and he was covered in gazette paper and two pieces of wood,” said the neighbour. According to Boatswain’s father, the killer, who is now in police custody, was mentally ill and always provoked his son. One of Boatswain’s sisters said that his killer had been warded at St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital at least three times before and received medical documents which said that he suffered from a “chemical imbalance in the brain.” “He is a real demon. He was always troubling the next one for no reason. Just yesterday I buy three packs of kool-aid for him (Sheldon) and for the next one. And this is what happen today.” Sheldon and his killer were both unemployed and were being supported by Ghanit who works in the Port-of-Spain City Corporation.

“The two of them not working nowhere, so I supporting the two of them. But that one is a real demon.” Ghanit described his dead son as an angel because he was a “real church boy.” His grandmother, 89-year-old Christine Gould, said “he is a real quiet child and all he used to talk about is the Gospel of God.” The suspect was arrested by police officers from the Central Division. Investigations are continuing