Man to appear in Couva court charged with Hoggie's murder

The suspect held in connection with last month’s stabbing death of 44-year-old air conditioning technician Nicholas Damian Murphy is expected to appear before a Couva magistrate today charged with murder.

Last night, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Joan Honore-Paul instructed police to charge the fellow villager, a psychiatric outpatient. A few days ago, legal officer PC Kyrn Lewis submitted a file in the case for advice.

Murphy, also called Hoggie, was chopped and stabbed on June 20 at Cassava Lane in Carapichaima. At about 1.45 pm that day, a couple said they returned home and saw him bleeding on the ground. He was taken to the Couva Health Centre and died at about 3 pm.

Sgt Ramoutar and others from Couva CID, as well as Cpl Bridgemohan from the Homicide Investigations Bureau (Region III), interviewed people. Police were later told a car pulled up and men got out and had an argument with Murphy, during which he was brutally attacked.

Some time after the killing, the suspect, who lives in Carapichaima, became a patient of the psychiatric ward of the San Fernando General Hospital. Over the weekend he was discharged, and the police arrested him.

Murphy was not married and had no children. He lived at Roopsingh Road Extension.

Supt Lucia Winchester of the Homicide Bureau is leading investigations.