Pensioner dies after witnessing altercation

While police have not yet deemed Nelson’s death a homicide, detectives are awaiting the results of an autopsy, to be done at the Forensic Science Centre in St James, to confirm that there was no foul play involved.

June Nelson, the pensioner’s daughter, told Newsday yesterday that her mother’s death is the latest chapter in a string of confrontations which occurred between her family and the same resident, a woman in her late twenties.

At the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday, June said she did not blame the woman for her mother’s death, but said the woman was influenced by the Devil to provoke her family.

“I forgive her for how she treated our family,” June said. “The Devil made them believe that they could just beat up my daughter and rough up my mother and nothing would have come out of it. They were not looking to go and kill anyone, or cause anyone’s death. What has happened, has happened already. Right now, all I want is peace.

If the autopsy proves that there was no foul play then they would get away, but I believe that it was the fight that led to my mother’s death.” June said her daughter and her mother went for a walk to a nearby parlour and, on their way back, encountered the resident and her friends. An argument broke out between June’s daughter and the resident and a fight ensued. During the fracas, Nelson began complaining of pains in her chest.

Emergency services were alerted, and Nelson was rushed to the San Fernando General Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Police said the resident was detained and questioned but was later released since eyewitness accounts did not indicate that Nelson was physically harmed during the altercation.

June described her mother as a quiet woman, who was well known for picking up bottles in the Chaguanas area and reselling them.