[UPDATED] Penal man found dead at home

AN 81-year-old woman found the body of her 49-year-old son at his home in Penal on the evening of July 8 after finding it strange that she had not seen him that day.

Pensioner Ramrajee Beharry was shaking as she recalled walking next door at Ramnarine Trace off San Francique to visit Anthony Sahadeo James, also called Boom, and finding the body.

James lived alone in a one-room galvanised and wooden structure.

Speaking to Newsday on Tuesday, Beharry recalled that she pushed open the door around 3.45 pm and saw him lying on a mattress with a wound to the head, wearing only boxer shorts.

"When I came here. He had already passed out on the bed. There was plenty of blood," Beharry said as his daughter, her granddaughter, Alice James, stood next to her.

Beharry said she last heard him, from her home, on his cellphone talking to a woman on Sunday night.

"He was telling the woman, 'I love you.' Then I heard a man's voice, but I do not know what he was saying."

James was the father of two and worked as a fabricator.

His daughter, 21, a mother of three, said whenever he drank alcohol, he would talk loudly.

Whenever Beharry would look at the house, he often told her to close her door and mind her business.

Alice added, "He usually got up early and cleaned the place. She got up and did not see him yesterday. That was the only morning she did not see him, so she went to check on him."

"My father was a nice person. He just liked rum, and when he got drunk, he would talk hard. He was straightforward. We never expected something like this to happen. He was in love and shared an off-and-on relationship for the past year."

District Medical Officer Dr De Gannes ordered the body removed to the mortuary of San Fernando General Hospital pending an autopsy at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

Cpl Ramkisoon, WPC Ashby-Shelby, PC Yearwood, and other police from the Southern Western Division, together with Sgt Elvin, WPC La Rode and PC Sirkissoon of the Homicide Bureau Investigations Region Three, visited the scene.

The police do not have a motive.

WPC Rampersad is leading the investigation.

This story has been adjusted to include additional details. See original post below.

HOMICIDE Bureau of Investigations Region Three police are probing the death of a 49-year-old man found at his home in Penal on Monday afternoon.

Penal police found the body of fabricator Anthony Sahadeo James of San Francique with wounds to the head around 5.30 pm, after a relative went to his home to visit him.

He was lying on a mattress in the one-room galvanised and wooden structure, wearing only boxer shorts.

He was last seen alive around 11 pm on July 7.

District medical officer Dr De Gannes ordered the body removed to the mortuary of San Fernando General Hospital pending an autopsy at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

Cpl Ramkisoon, WPC Ashby-Shelby, Pc Yearwood, and other police from the Southern Western Division, together with Sgt Elvin, WPC La Rode and PC Sirkissoon of the Homicide Bureau, visited the scene.

The police do not have a motive.

WPC Rampersad is leading the investigation.