Handyman convicted of killing housekeeper in 2006

A San Juan handyman was convicted on Monday of the unlawful killing (manslaughter) of a housekeeper at a villa in Mt Irvine in 2006.

Clint Sylvan, who lived at Milford Court, Tobago, at the time of the killing, was before Justice Geoffrey Henderson in a judge-only trial in the Tobago High Court.

He was charged with the murder of Janet Davis on September 8, 2006.

But on the basis of the evidence, Henderson said his verdict was not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter on the basis of provocation.

Twelve witnesses gave evidence at the trial and the evidence of three others was admitted as evidence, including the post-mortem report on Davis, which noted 14 stab and four incised wounds.

In his ruling, Henderson said Davis sustained the extensive injuries in a “frenzied attack.”

Sylvan raised provocation in his defence, and although the judge said there was absence of words of provocation, there was circumstantial evidence of provocative words.

“The evidence in this case is that the accused came into the room, went straight to the deceased, while saying, ‘What it is you say on the phone dey?’ and immediately began hitting Janet Davis.

“I have drawn the inference from that utterance made by the accused that something was said which suddenly and temporarily made him lose his self-control. The evidence from his co-workers is that this was the first time that they saw him behave this way,” the judge said in his ruling.

At the trial, Sylvan said he and Davis had a romantic relationship which began three years before the incident.

In an interview with police immediately after the stabbing, Sylvan, who told police where to find the knife he had used, said he “really loved” Davis and they got into an incident that could have been avoided.

The only eyewitness to the killing was a co-worker in housekeeping who testified that she and Davis were cleaning one of the rooms at the holiday property when Davis received a phone call.

She testified that Davis sounded angry when she got the call and, suddenly, Sylvan appeared in the room they were cleaning and said, “What you are saying on the phone dey?”

The witness said Sylvan began cuffing Davis and when she fell to the ground, the co-worker ran out of the room for help.

She returned with a guest and saw Sylvan, who was crouched on top of Davis, take a knife from his waist and begin stabbing her with “plenty stabs.”

She and the guest left the room and waited in another until the police came.

She said it was the first time she had ever seen Sylvan hit Davis and had never seen this behaviour from him before.

Sylvan was seen running from the property by someone who lived next door and police met Sylvan at a restaurant on Shirvan Road, sitting on a stool.

Sylvan stretched both of his wrists out to a policeman and said, “I am the man you looking for.”

Two days before the incident, the couple’s co-workers said they were with Sylvan in the laundry area when he began complaining about how Davis and her family treated him.

They said he wasn’t speaking to anyone, but was just complaining.

At one point, he was heard saying, “Imagine, I take a loan and buy fridge, microwave and all kinda things for them,” and, “Look how they treating” him, and one of the women dissuaded him from going to Davis’s home.

In his testimony, Sylvan said one of Davis’s daughters stabbed him in the back the month before the incident. Five months before that, he had been put out of Davis’s home, which she shared with her husband and children, because of a quarrel between Sylvan and one of her daughters.

On the day of the stabbing, he said he went to the bar to wait for someone when he got a call from Davis. He told her he was taking the boat to Trinidad the next day and she asked if he had money. His friend eventually came and he said Davis kept calling him, chastising him for always drinking, and then demanded money. He admitted to possibly having 11-13 beers that day.

His friend took him home and he said, just after 1 pm, Davis continued to call, using obscene language and demanding that he bring no less than $3,000.He decided to go to meet her and when he got to the villa, he asked to go by the pool to talk before he gave her the money.

He said she refused and was still cursing while making a bed. Sylvan said she pushed him and they got into an argument which “got really out of hand.”

Sylvan claimed Davis had a small knife and slashed him across his hand before he noticed her gasping for breath with blood flowing from her neck.

He is expected to be sentenced on May 19.

Sylvan was represented by attorneys Amerelle Francis and Kyle Fortune while the State was represented by prosecutors Ambay Ramkellawan and Destiny Grey.