Derek Achong

A St Joseph man, who po­lice claimed was re­spon­si­ble for the mur­der of his com­mon-law wife on Sun­day, died at hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day af­ter com­mit­ting sui­cide. Nigel Castil­lo, 38, of Cen­tral Dri­ve, Mara­cas, St Joseph, died at around 11 am, while re­ceiv­ing treat­ment at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope. Castil­lo was dis­cov­ered un­con­scious at a rel­a­tive's home in Mal­oney Gar­dens, Arou­ca, mere hours af­ter his com­mon-law wife, Ker­in­cia Pierre Di­a­mond, 23, of Acono Road, Mara­cas, St Joseph, was dis­cov­ered dead on the road­side in a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment near her home.

Di­a­mond was found by rel­a­tives at around 3.30 pm at Bernard Boule­vard, Mara­cas Gar­dens, St Joseph. She suf­fered mas­sive head in­juries be­lieved to be in­flict­ed with a ham­mer, which was lat­er dis­cov­ered near the scene by po­lice.Di­a­mond was last seen alive ear­li­er that day by rel­a­tives who said she went to buy school sup­plies in Tu­na­puna with Castil­lo, for their five year-old daugh­ter.Two hours lat­er, Castil­lo was dis­cov­ered froth­ing at the mouth by homi­cide de­tec­tives in­ves­ti­gat­ing Di­a­mond's mur­der. A bot­tle of poi­son was found near his body.

Their daugh­ter was stay­ing at a rel­a­tive's home at the time of the in­ci­dent. When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the scene of Di­a­mond's mur­der rel­a­tives said the mur­der was a shock but not­ed that the cou­ple shared a tur­bu­lent re­la­tion­ship, with Castil­lo be­ing phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly abu­sive. Di­a­mond's mur­der was the fourth in the coun­try since the an­nounce­ment of the na­tion­al State of Emer­gency on Au­gust 21 and raised the mur­der toll for the year to 272. ASP Ran­dolph Boyce of the North­ern Di­vi­sion vis­it­ed both scenes and Re­gion 2 homi­cide de­tec­tives are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.