Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Po­lice yes­ter­day stopped the fu­ner­al of 97-year-old Josi­ah Hud­son Downes who died af­ter re­port­ed­ly be­ing beat­en by the ex-lover of his 48-year-old girl­friend. The woman at the cen­tre of the love tri­an­gle is now beg­ging for po­lice pro­tec­tion say­ing she has been re­ceiv­ing death threats.

Up to late yes­ter­day, po­lice were still search­ing for a 45-year-old man of Pe­nal Rock Road, who is ac­cused of beat­ing Downes around 9.30 am on Ju­ly 15. An au­top­sy done by pathol­o­gist Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley said Downes died from blunt force trau­ma to the chest and ab­domen, and pul­monary em­bolism. One of Downes' clos­est friends, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said his fu­ner­al was set for yes­ter­day. A brief ser­vice was ex­pect­ed to be held at Guide's Fu­ner­al Home in Cou­va fol­lowed by bur­ial at the Mara­bel­la Pub­lic Ceme­tery.

How­ev­er, homi­cide of­fi­cers stopped the fu­ner­al af­ter ob­tain­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the death. Mean­while, Downes' girl­friend, who was in­ter­viewed by po­lice for over six hours, said she want­ed jus­tice. She said she met Downes 22 years ago while work­ing at a bar on Union Road, Mara­bel­la. Downes was fond of horse rac­ing and would of­ten go to the Mara­bel­la Rac­ing track to bet on hors­es. The woman ex­plained that Downes had no wife or chil­dren and lived alone in a house owned by his Cana­di­an girl­friend at Cen­teno Street, Mara­bel­la.

"Over the years I start­ed to take care of him. He was a very ac­tive gen­tle­man. He will walk and go to JTA and make mar­ket. He cooked for me, he liked his pro­vi­sion and fish. He had no sick­ness. He had an eye prob­lem and he went to hos­pi­tal and they gave him eye drops. He had good hear­ing, we used to sit down and talk a lot," she re­called. The woman al­so said Downes used to give her an al­lowance of $1,200 month­ly. "What­ev­er I ask for he would give to me. I used to check on him every week and he would give me $50 to trav­el back home in Aripero," she added.

On the night of the beat­ing, the woman said, Downes came over to her house and af­ter eat­ing a meal of cur­ried chick­en and rice he fell asleep on her bed. She ex­plained her for­mer lover came in­side and went bal­lis­tic. "(Name called) get so jeal­ous when he see the old man on my bed. He drag out the man and start­ed to beat him." Asked whether he knew Downes, the woman said yes. "He knows Downes be­cause he used to drop me there to get the mon­ey. I don't un­der­stand why he beat the man," she added. She said the sus­pect al­so threat­ened to kill her.

Calls to the sus­pect's cel­lu­lar phone went unan­swered yes­ter­day. Homi­cide of­fi­cers are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.