Al­though res­i­dents of Blue Spruce Street, Pine Ridge Heights, Lopinot, were yes­ter­day mourn­ing the mur­der of a busi­ness­man at his home, they claimed not to be scared al­though the main sus­pect lives in the area.

Ver­non Guis­chard, 67, the own­er of a garage in Barataria, was found dead on Tues­day.

Po­lice said they re­ceived a call around 4 pm from a rel­a­tive, who went to check on Guis­chard af­ter re­peat­ed calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered.

Up­on ar­riv­ing at the house, of­fi­cers were es­cort­ed to the garage, where they found Guis­chard ly­ing on the ground next to his gold Toy­ota Hilux with in­juries to his head.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer vis­it­ed the scene and pro­nounced him dead.

Po­lice re­trieved sev­er­al items from the scene, in­clud­ing a chis­el, a gold chain, and a pair of glass­es.

Po­lice said ear­li­er in the day, Guis­chard had sent footage from his home se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem show­ing a man, known to peo­ple in the area, en­ter­ing his prop­er­ty at 7.05 am. Guis­chard was last seen walk­ing in­to his yard through the front gate around 8.16 am.

Po­lice and res­i­dents sus­pect a res­i­dent in the area may be re­spon­si­ble for Guis­chard’s death.

An el­der­ly woman, who asked not to be named yes­ter­day, said it was shock­ing, as this was the first time the sus­pect would have act­ed in such a vi­o­lent man­ner.

She claimed the young man was ac­cus­tomed to roam­ing the area—of­ten walk­ing in­to un­fenced prop­er­ties and pok­ing around.

She lament­ed the busi­ness­man’s mur­der.

“He was a nice, qui­et gen­tle­man who had been liv­ing in the area for the past 20 years.”

She said he was very in­tel­li­gent and would al­ways greet peo­ple warm­ly, mak­ing small talk and lit­tle jokes.

The res­i­dent added, “There is a guy who was un­sta­ble...most peo­ple would say he is man­ic de­pres­sive, that might have jumped the wall.”

The el­der­ly woman said Guis­chard may have con­front­ed the sus­pect.

“He parked the car in the front and went to check and that was it.

“Next thing we were hear­ing is that he was dead.”

The woman said sev­er­al res­i­dents had ex­tend­ed a help­ing hand to the sus­pect, as they re­alised he was not “too right.”

She added, “His par­ents just weren’t able with him. They tried, they re­al­ly tried to help him but they weren’t able and he just roams the place now.”

In­di­cat­ing she didn’t feel un­safe, as her prop­er­ty was fenced and her doors were al­ways locked, she added, “I does al­ways look out as I don’t trust any­body and with that slight mad­ness, I am very cau­tious. I don’t mix with him much. I didn’t think he was vi­o­lent, but yet at the same time, if you are un­sta­ble, you can trig­ger off any­time.”

Guis­chard’s son was ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in the coun­try yes­ter­day.

A fam­i­ly mem­ber who lives along the street de­clined to com­ment much ex­cept to say they, too, had been hav­ing trou­ble with the sus­pect, who had tak­en to walk­ing on­to their prop­er­ty.