The sus­pect in the stab­bing death of 19-year-old Alex Coombs sur­ren­dered to the Freeport Po­lice yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said the 56-year-old man walked in­to the sta­tion alone and told the po­lice he was aware they were look­ing for him, but he had to pre­pare him­self men­tal­ly to sur­ren­der.

The teen was stabbed at home on Sun­day night al­leged­ly dur­ing an ar­gu­ment over an elec­tron­ic de­vice and af­ter be­ing de­nied food. He died at the hos­pi­tal.

Yes­ter­day, Coombs’ moth­er Sabi­ta Par­tap claimed her son, who was men­tal­ly chal­lenged, was abused since the age of 12 by some rel­a­tives.

“They al­ways used to beat him up be­cause they didn’t like my son. My son was go­ing to Freeport Pres­by­ter­ian School and when he was 12 years he was beat­en on the head with a pool stick and he was bleed­ing. I went to the po­lice. Every time he was beat­en up I went by the po­lice. They al­ways used to slap him. They push him down in the sand. His eyes got sand,” Par­tap claimed.

Par­tap said Coombs was sent to St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home af­ter a mag­is­trate sent him there for run­ning away from home. The moth­er said at St Do­minic’s, Coombs learnt sev­er­al trades in­clud­ing me­chan­ics, plumb­ing and food prepa­ra­tion. 

At the age of 18, he was re­leased and re­turned to the Freeport home where Par­tap claimed the abuse con­tin­ued up un­til Sun­day night when he was de­nied food, his tablet hid­den, he was beat­en, choked and stabbed mul­ti­ple times.

Po­lice said there had been sev­er­al re­ports of abuse against Coombs over the years. The sus­pect, mean­while, re­mained in po­lice cus­tody last evening.