SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@

guardian.co.tt

A 44-year-old nurse was found dead in her Vista­bel­la apart­ment on Sun­day night with a wound to the neck and a knife in her hand.

Po­lice are await­ing the re­sults of an au­top­sy on Mar­i­an Bac­chus to de­ter­mine whether the in­jury was self-in­flict­ed or if it was a case of homi­cide.

Bac­chus’ body was al­ready in a state of de­com­po­si­tion when she was dis­cov­ered.

Po­lice said the 69-year-old land­lord for the apart­ments con­tact­ed them around 8.10 pm. He re­port­ed that Bac­chus had rent­ed the up­stairs apart­ment along Pointe-a-Pierre Road for the past three years.

He said he had con­tact­ed her rel­a­tives, who told him they had been un­able to reach her by phone. They had al­so vis­it­ed her apart­ment but got no an­swer.

When the land­lord went to the apart­ment around 7.30 pm, he called out to Bac­chus but got no re­sponse. Us­ing a key, he un­locked the steel and glass door. In­side a bed­room, he saw Bac­chus ly­ing on her back on a blood­stained bed.

There was al­so blood on the floor.

Po­lice said she was dressed in her un­der­gar­ments and had a wound to the throat. A bloody, red-han­dled knife was in her hand. The apart­ment ap­peared to be in­tact.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors learnt that Bac­chus lived alone and was last seen alive on Oc­to­ber 8. She had re­port­ed­ly vis­it­ed a doc­tor for sick leave and was lat­er dropped off at her apart­ment by her broth­er around 5.30 pm.

Rel­a­tives said calls to her phone had since gone unan­swered. Her broth­er tried vis­it­ing her in the days that fol­lowed but got no re­sponse.

Po­lice said Bac­chus, who worked at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, was ap­par­ent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the apart­ment build­ing, many ten­ants were not at home. How­ev­er, one res­i­dent, Car­los Williams, said apart from be­ing her next-door neigh­bour, he would al­so see Bac­chus at the hos­pi­tal’s neu­rol­o­gy de­part­ment, where she worked, when he at­tend­ed clin­ic there.

Williams, who al­so does main­te­nance work at the build­ing, said Bac­chus large­ly kept to her­self.

“She wasn’t re­al­ly a jovial per­son. She was qui­et. She would go her way. She’d wave. When I heard that, it was shock­ing to me,” he said.

Williams added that the land­lord in­formed him yes­ter­day morn­ing that Bac­chus had died.

South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice vis­it­ed the scene, and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.