Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Two young boys watched in hor­ror yes­ter­day as a close rel­a­tive killed their moth­er, stab­bing her 15 times about the body at her work­place, be­fore turn­ing the knife on him­self. Saidan Mitchell, 10, and Seph Mitchell, 11, of Fon­rose Street, San Fer­nan­do, tried to beat off the at­tack­er as he shoved their moth­er Sab­ri­na Lal­la-Mitchell, 31, on the floor and plunged a knife re­peat­ed­ly in­to her chest and ab­domen. The knife ripped through her heart and lungs. The in­ci­dent oc­curred around 4.30 pm at Bavar­i­an Mo­tors on Todd Street, San Fer­nan­do, where Lal­la-Mitchell worked as an of­fice su­per­vi­sor. Po­lice said short­ly be­fore she closed the busi­ness, Lal­la-Mitchell was seen speak­ing with the sus­pect. Her two chil­dren were at her side.

A work­er said: "They were not in a heat­ed con­ver­sa­tion. They were talk­ing qui­et­ly. I then went out to move my car. That was when the in­ci­dent oc­curred." Wit­ness Nigel Seenaths­ingh said the sus­pect pulled out a knife and be­gan stab­bing Lal­la-Mitchell mul­ti­ple times in her up­per body. "Peo­ple saw what was hap­pen­ing...She was on the ground and he was bend­ing over her and stab­bing her re­peat­ed­ly," Seenaths­ingh said. The sus­pect then slashed him­self in the low­er ab­domen with the knife and ran in­to his car. Bleed­ing, the man start­ed the car and drove along Todd Street. Work­ers im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed the San Fer­nan­do po­lice who re­spond­ed and in­ter­cept­ed the ve­hi­cle. Up to last night, the sus­pect re­mained ward­ed un­der po­lice guard at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Po­lice said Lal­la-Mitchell re­cent­ly got a di­vorce.

Since the di­vorce, how­ev­er, she re­port­ed to po­lice that she was re­ceiv­ing threat­en­ing phone calls. Her fa­ther Den­nis Lal­la said it was not the first time that the sus­pect phys­i­cal­ly abused his daugh­ter. He said he of­ten spoke to Lal­la-Mitchell about her prob­lems. Lal­la said the sus­pect came over to their home last week

"We bar­be­qued chick­en and he ate and limed...We did not think he was plan­ning any­thing," Lal­la wept. He said his grand­sons were un­aware that their moth­er had died. "I have to go now and break the news to them...It is not easy," Lal­la said. He said Lal­la-Mitchell had been mar­ried for ten years, and her di­vorce fi­nal­ly came through this year. Cpl Reid, PCs Ram­dass and Singh of the San Fer­nan­do CID vis­it­ed the scene.