Handyman chopped to death

A Petit Valley handyman was brutally chopped to death while on his way to purchase Kentucky Fried Chicken early yesterday. His murder is the 211th for the year.

Marlon Hassic, 29, alias “Crane” of Morne Coco Road, Petit Valley, left home around 2 am yesterday, telling his sister that he was hungry and felt like eating some KFC. He never made it to the KFC outlet, being brutally chopped about the head, neck and arms around 2.25 am. Yesterday, the dirt track where the murder took place was covered with blood. Hassic’s death has been described as a revenge killing. Reports revealed that Hassic had an argument with a man known to him which led to the chopping death. Police investigators told Newsday that they have received useful information on the murder and have issued a warrant for the arrest of the prime suspect.

The suspect has reportedly gone into hiding. Carol Hassic sister of the dead man told Newsday that she began taking care of her brother when he was two years old, and she considered him her own son. She boasted that he had a green thumb and loved to eat. He had purchased two weed wackers and earned a living cutting the lawns of residents in the west. The grieving woman said that Hassic loved flowers and used his spare time to plant. “Imagine I planted a coconut tree around the same time that Marlon planted another coconut tree, and recently the tree which Marlon planted was already bearing nuts,” she said. She feels that her brother was robbed, and then killed.

According to Carol, she wanted to prevent her brother from leaving the house early yesterday, but he insisted that he wanted to eat some KFC. “He really ‘loved his belly’ so I could not prevent him from leaving,” said Carol. She said that when she was told that her brother had been killed, she refused to believe it until she went to the crime scene and saw the lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. Officers of the West End Police Station visited the scene along with officers of the Crime Scenes Unit, and investigations are continuing. An autopsy will be carried out at the Forensic Science Centre today to determine the cause of death.