The new year, 2021, got off to a bloody start as two men were chopped to death in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in Mor­vant and Ma­coya on Jan­u­ary 1.

In the first in­ci­dent, around 4 am, Mor­vant res­i­dent Dar­ryl Vil­lafana was hacked to death in front of his daugh­ter and months-old grand­daugh­ter as the na­tion wel­comed the new year.

The 50 year old, of Co­conut Dri­ve, was killed when two masked men en­tered his home.

Plead­ing with the killers to spare her life as she point­ed to her young child who lay asleep on the near­by bed, Vil­lafana’s daugh­ter watched as the killers walked to a wait­ing ve­hi­cle and spoke amongst them­selves be­fore they drove off.

Re­count­ing how ter­ri­fied she was when she burst in­to his home beg­ging for help and safe­ty, Vil­lafana’s el­der broth­er Rus­sell cried on Sat­ur­day as he said his broth­er did not de­serve to die that way.

Rus­sell, who lives just a few feet away from Dar­ryl, said he was asleep when the in­ci­dent oc­curred.

He told the Sun­day Guardian, "Dar­ryl’s daugh­ter does not live with him, but she came to spend time with her fa­ther for the new year.

"They didn’t cater for her be­cause she does not usu­al­ly be there. His house is easy to open so they went in and found the three of them asleep. My broth­er said (name called) what is this one boy…and with that, they be­gan chop­ping him."

Ad­mit­ting he had been asleep and did not re­alise what had hap­pened un­til Vil­lafana’s daugh­ter en­tered his house cry­ing and shak­ing, Rus­sell said, "She tell me she begged them over and over to spare her be­cause she just had a ba­by. They leave her and walked out­side to a car that was wait­ing for them, they jump in and stayed a lit­tle

while be­fore dri­ving off. She was in­side peep­ing and did not come out un­til the car left."

He be­lieved his broth­er, who worked as a PH dri­ver and did odd jobs in the area, was killed over a woman.

Rus­sell claimed Dar­ryl had got­ten close with a woman who lived near­by and it might have been this as­so­ci­a­tion that cost him his life.

He said it was on­ly af­ter Dar­ryl’s death that he learned of the ver­bal threats that had been made to­wards his broth­er.

Rus­sell claimed a re­port had al­so been made to the po­lice, but he could not con­firm if any ac­tion had been tak­en.

In the sec­ond in­ci­dent around 9 pm at Ma­coya Ex­ten­sion Road, Tu­na­puna, Aarif Mo­hammed, 43, of As­saraff Road, Char­lieville, was killed dur­ing a do­mes­tic dis­pute with two Venezue­lan na­tion­als who were said to be his rel­a­tives.

Up to late Sat­ur­day, a Venezue­lan fa­ther and his two sons, aged 20 and 24, re­mained in po­lice cus­tody.

When Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the apart­ment com­plex where the mur­der oc­curred, one man who wit­nessed the in­ci­dent said he had just re­turned home when the broth­ers in­formed him their un­cle, Mo­hammed, was on the way to their home to "make trou­ble."

Re­quest­ing his name not be pub­lished, the eye­wit­ness said, "By the time my fam­i­ly went in­side, I see the un­cle com­ing with a blade in his hand and the two guys run back up­stairs and lock up. I thought the un­cle left and then I see the boys come back down to check and see if he gone, but then he (Mo­hammed) sud­den­ly come back and start fir­ing chop."

Point­ing to a cor­ner near to his house where the trio end­ed up in a scuf­fle, the wit­ness said he ad­vised the boys to "tie him (Mo­hammed) up be­cause I called the po­lice and they com­ing now. I went to move my van and saw the man tied up and when I come back, I don’t know if they lash him or what."

De­fend­ing the broth­ers who have been work­ing as farm­ers for the past two years, the wit­ness said, "They are good boys. Since they have been liv­ing here, they haven’t got­ten in­to trou­ble with any­one. They are hard work­ers and they each have new­born ba­bies so they work­ing and mind­ing their chil­dren."

Re­veal­ing the sus­pects' fe­male rel­a­tive had been in a re­la­tion­ship with the vic­tim, the wit­ness claimed the dis­pute had be­gun ear­li­er in the day and es­ca­lat­ed by the evening.

Sun­day Guardian was told the po­lice of­fi­cers had re­cov­ered the cut­lass used in the in­ci­dent.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to both in­ci­dents.

The mur­der tal­ly as at De­cem­ber 31, 2020, was said to be 396.

De­com­pos­ing body found in Mal­oney

Mean­while, the de­com­pos­ing body of an uniden­ti­fied man was found in Mal­oney Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Around 10 am, res­i­dents of Build­ing 20, Mal­oney Gar­dens, con­tact­ed po­lice and re­port­ed that a foul stench was em­a­nat­ing from the apart­ment. When of­fi­cers ar­rived and en­tered the house, they found the de­ceased.

Crime scene of­fi­cials vis­it­ed and can­vassed the area in a bid to re­trieve ev­i­dence.