Two children playing along Reid Lane, D’Abadie, stumbled upon the body of a 35-year-old Valsayn man on Tuesday morning.
According to police reports, a motorist was stopped by the children around 12.05 pm on Tuesday and told there was a dead man in a vehicle nearby. When the man checked he found the body of Earl Paynter, of Midway Road, Valsayn, in the driver's seat with his head slumped to the right side. Paynter was found some 40 feet off Reid Lane, in a brown Chevrolet pickup.
Police said Paynter had stab wounds to the neck. His autopsy revealed he was shot in the back of the neck, with the bullet exiting his nose. He was also stabbed several times in the left side of his neck, most likely after he died as a result of the gunshot wound.
Police could not give a motive for his killing and when approached at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, relatives chose not to comment, saying the killing was at a sensitive stage.
In an unrelated incident, after spending 15 days at the Intensive Care Unit of the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, a 54-year-old Arima woman died on Tuesday night.
According to police, Annie Sammy died from burns she suffered to 70 per cent of her when arsonists threw a molotov cocktail in her home on July 11. Sammy suffered third and second degree burns.
Police said Sammy was asleep at her home along Laloo Trace, Wallerfield, around 3 am when an explosion was heard. Relatives of Sammy who were at home found the woman screaming in pain in her bedroom, which was engulfed in flames. Sammy died as a result of burn sepsis, consistent with her injuries.
Her relatives did not speak to the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday. These two deaths and that of a 44-year-old security guard on Tuesday night have pushed the murder toll to 260 for the year.