Ex-con head severed, placed on table at rumshop

La Romaine residents were paralysed with horror yesterday when they found the decapitated head of a 33-year-old ex-convict which was placed on display outside a bar. It was only last Friday that Learie Ceballo, of Coconut Drive, San Fernando, was released from prison, but less than a week later, his mangled and swollen head was found on a table outside Stepperz Restaurant and Bar at Rambert Village.

Four hours later, a team of police led by Insp Matthew Noel and ASP Yussuf Gaffar found the rest of his body several metres off the Hermitage Village agricultural road, which has become a murder dump site over the past five years. Traffic and passers-by piled up along the road with children and adults gasping at the gory sight of the head, which police believe was put there between midnight and 5 am yesterday.

Reports stated that around 6 am, a doubles vendor known only as Ben, went to set up for his morning sales on the same table where he discovered the head. The traumatised Ben, who lives opposite, said when he took his containers across, he initially thought the object on the table was a black plastic bag. However, he soon realised it was a head and ran back home to call the bar’s owner Veshal Sieunarine.

“It’s the first time I saw something like that. That sight bothered me so much, look, now I can’t even work. I don’t even feel I can go back there and sell anything after seeing that,” Ben said. Sieunarine said he closed up around 10.30 pm on Wednesday and there were no incidents at the bar, nor did he see anything on his patio table. He said the village was usually quiet. Residents of nearby Pond Street, however, said Ceballo’s death was no shock to them as he had been involved in robberies and drugs since he was a teenager. They called for a greater police presence in the area as robberies and shootings have escalated.