Mentally-ill man shot in back of head

RELATIVES of 38-year-old Jake Halls, a mentally-ill man who was found dead in Matura on Saturday, are asking who would kill him, and why.

Family members said Halls’ death was a tragic and brutal end to a difficult life.

At the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday, relatives said Halls’ father died when he was just seven years old, causing him to become depressed. They said, as a youth, he started smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. When he was taken to a hospital, he was diagnosed with drug-induced psychosis.

“He would be good, then he would get sick, then he would be good again,” one relative said. “Every Christmas he would trip off. The police will carry him down to take a few injections and he would come back out.”

Relatives believed he would give in to the temptation of alcohol and it would cause a psychotic break.

When he was stable, he was a jovial and friendly person, relatives said. He worked as a labourer in a bar near his home.

“Most times he would be laughing and dancing and singing and calling people to ‘chant’ (freestyle rap).”

Relatives said he was in the same jovial mood the last time he was seen alive. He told his mother he was going to the bar to lime, which is what he would normally do on a Friday night.

Less than 12 hours later, Eastern Division police got a report that Halls was seen lying at the side of the Toco Main Road, near Sandals Trace.

Police found him bleeding from a gunshot wound to the back of his head and took him to the Sangre Grande hospital where he was declared dead.