The body of a se­mi-paral­ysed Princes Town man was found hang­ing out­side his home on Thurs­day in what po­lice have deemed a sui­cide caused from de­pres­sion. How­ev­er, the fam­i­ly of 43-year-old Wayne Sookoo of St Croix Road is vow­ing to get jus­tice, say­ing his death was the re­sult of a bru­tal as­sault last year which left him paral­ysed from the waist down.

His at­tack­er did not know he was deaf and suf­fered from a speech im­ped­i­ment. Princes Town po­lice said the vic­tim's sis­ter, Cheryl-Ann Sookoo, went to check on him around 8 am, and found him hang­ing from a piece of bed­sheet which was tied around the rail­ing of a wheel­chair ramp. Po­lice have since ruled out foul play.

Speak­ing at the mor­tu­ary of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, an­oth­er sis­ter of the dead man, Pa­tri­cia Sookoo said on March 19, 2012, her broth­er was out­side a near­by restau­rant search­ing for bones for his dog. As he looked through the garbage, a san­i­ta­tion work­er sig­nalled Sookoo to move, but he could not hear the truck.

She said the work­er be­came an­gry and beat Sookoo so se­vere­ly that he suf­fered a bro­ken spine and head in­juries. He was found by passers-by next morn­ing at the side of a gas sta­tion. Since then, she said her broth­er's im­mo­bil­i­ty had left him wish­ing he was dead.

"He was very de­pressed. He was a guy who would usu­al­ly go out there and lime with his friends, and he got de­pressed see­ing that he could not talk, hear or walk. He said he pre­ferred to die." An au­top­sy done yes­ter­day showed he died from as­phyx­i­a­tion.