Ex-cop stabbed 39 times ...file goes to DPP

FORMER Inspector of Police Kenneth Best was stabbed 39 times about the body, a post mortem has revealed, and the woman who allegedly did the stabbing remained at the St Ann’s Mental Hospital up to late evening.

However, the file was yesterday submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Geoffrey Henderson, who had not given directions to the police up to late evening. Northern Division police said Best, 53, of Emerald Avenue, Bon Air Gardens, had multiple chop wounds to nearly every part of his body. Best, father of three, was stabbed on May 30 at the Alfred Olton Street, D’Abadie, home of Jamaican national Lorna Alleyne, following an argument with the 28-year-old woman, who is an outpatient of the mental hospital. Senior police officers said yesterday they were awaiting a report from officials of the St Ann’s Hospital. However, officials at the mental institution said they could not say when the Windy Hill, Arouca woman would be released from Ward 9 of the institution. She has been diagnosed with bipolar disease, a psychiatric illness, which means having two poles of extreme emotions.

The alleged female killer was sent to the mental institution last Friday night after officials of the Arima Health Facility referred her there. It is claimed that the woman started acting up at the Arima Police Station during interrogation by officers of the Criminal Investigations Department. Sources at the St Ann’s Hospital said the woman was first admitted to the institution in 1994, when she was 19. Her last admission, sources said, was in 2001. Officers of the Arima Criminal Investigations Department are continuing investigations.