Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

One month af­ter he moved in­to his fa­ther-in-law's home, Tim­o­thy Bell got caught up in an on­go­ing feud which left him dead yes­ter­day. Bell, 26, of Der­ry Lane, McBean, Cou­va, suc­cumbed to mul­ti­ple head and body in­juries, 24 hours af­ter he was al­leged­ly chopped and beat­en. Up to last night, a 45-year-old con­trac­tor re­mained in cus­tody at Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion. Rel­a­tives of the con­trac­tor said he act­ed in self-de­fence af­ter Bell and an­oth­er rel­a­tive at­tacked the con­trac­tor and his fam­i­ly. Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors said the fra­cas oc­curred around 11 am on Sat­ur­day af­ter Bell went over to the sus­pect's home to in­quire about a pre­vi­ous feud be­tween him and one of Bell's rel­a­tives.

Wit­ness Tiffany Thomas said the feud start­ed on Di­vali night when her boyfriend, Matthew, got in­to an ar­gu­ment with the sus­pect. She said the sus­pect, who lived close by, did not want any­one look­ing over at his home. Thomas said around 11 am on Sat­ur­day, Matthew went to pick pom­mer­ac and while walk­ing on the road, both men start­ed ar­gu­ing. Matthew's fa­ther, Pre­m­dath Kan­hai, said Bell lat­er walked over to the sus­pect's res­i­dence to find out why the he was act­ing in an an­ti-so­cial man­ner. A fight en­sued and it is al­leged that one of Bell's rel­a­tives jumped in­to the fray. Sev­er­al oth­er neig­bours, how­ev­er, rushed in to help, af­ter a man was al­leged­ly dragged on­to the road. By the time the po­lice ar­rived, Bell was ly­ing un­con­scious in the road­way.

Tiffany said they took a pil­low and placed it on his wound to stem the flow of blood. How­ev­er, he nev­er re­gained con­scious­ness and died at 11 am yes­ter­day. Mean­while, rel­a­tives of the sus­pect al­leged that Bell came over to their home to cause trou­ble. An­janie Bowlah said over the past few days, one of Bell's rel­a­tives had threat­ened to start a war with them. She said they had just re­turned from the gro­cery when Bell's rel­a­tive at­tacked them. Bowlah said the en­tire in­ci­dent got out of hand when Bell joined in the fra­cas. Po­lice have since tak­en sev­er­al state­ments in con­nec­tion with the mur­der. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.