Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

A scrap met­al col­lec­tor who was struck on the head with a blunt ob­ject dur­ing a dis­pute with three men last Mon­day, has suc­cumbed to his in­juries at the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.Stephen Moore, 30, of Av­o­ca­do Street, Stel­lar Boule­vard, Ran­cho Que­ma­do, died at around 3.30 am yes­ter­day, three days af­ter he was beat­en close to his home.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said at around 8.30 am on Mon­day, Moore was pick­ing up scrap met­al for sale when he got in­to a dis­pute with some men at Ran­cho Que­ma­do. It is al­leged that the men picked up pieces of wood and be­gan beat­ing Moore un­til he fell un­con­scious.He was tak­en by am­bu­lance to the Point Fortin Area Hos­pi­tal then trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.Po­lice said Moore's con­di­tion de­te­ri­o­rat­ed on Wednes­day and he was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he lat­er died.A team of of­fi­cers led by Supt Sam­path and in­clud­ing In­sp Seedarie and Sgt Gan­ga went to San­ta Flo­ra yes­ter­day and in­ter­viewed sev­er­al wit­ness­es.

Po­lice said Moore made a liv­ing by sell­ing scrap iron to deal­ers.He would spend most of his time comb­ing the streets and of­ten he would pick up items from around peo­ple's homes. Po­lice said it was pos­si­ble that this could have trig­gered the beat­ing.An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done on Moore's body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on Moore's death can con­tact the San­ta Flo­ra po­lice at 649-5000.Sgt Gan­ga is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.