Police yesterday captured a mentally challenged woman, hours after she had slit the throat of a 39-year old Clonbrook, East Coast Demerara man. The woman managed to escape from angry but cautious residents after she had murdered Sherriff Balmacoon, called ‘Boutam’ or ‘Massa, an unemployed father of two around 21:30 hours on Saturday night.She was subdued and arrested around 06:30 hours yesterday by a female Sergeant of police with the assistance of a public-spirited woman after she was seen wandering in the Cove and John area, some three miles from where the fatal incident occurred.Balmacoon received a gaping wound to his neck and there appeared to be other stab wounds about his body.When this newspaper arrived on the scene on Saturday night, his body was lying on the roadway, a few yards from where he lived.While the woman has not yet given police anything substantial to work with, it is believed that she attacked Balmacoon while he was making his way home under the heavy influence of alcohol.Detectives are trying to ascertain what prompted the attack.There is speculation that Balmacoon, who is known to the woman, might have triggered it by engaging the woman who villagers said was a frequent sight in the Clonbrook Village.An eyewitness said that she had peered out from her window just in time to see the woman chop Balmacoon on his neck.“I hear de brick pelting and I look out fuh see is wha, and I see she fire a chop and boutam fall down. Me call me son, ‘look dah gal chop ‘Boutam’,Cheap Jerseys Online,” the eyewitness told this newspaper.The woman said that her son Amar ran out of the house with only his briefs to see what had transpired, and upon reaching out to the road, he saw the woman standing nearby with what appeared to be a knife in her hand a few feet from Balmacoon who was lying motionless on the ground.Amar told Kaieteur News that he was fearful of apprehending the woman by himself, since he was certain that she was armed and dangerous.“Me holler fu people fuh give me a back-up fu leh awe just brace she,” Amar said.The mentally challenged suspectHowever, neighbours were slow to respond and Amar ended up pursuing the woman all the way to the neighbouring village of Greenfield all the while hoping to get help to subdue her.“Me had to keep a distance from she. She had something in de bag. Me ask she why she juk de man and she seh leh me nah come close, she gon juk me too. So me back off and me nah had nobody fuh help me,” Amar related.He said that the woman eventually went into a shop and he moved away to get help to capture her.When he returned the woman had made good her escape.The woman he said would normally sleep under the shed in front of his mother’s shop.“She does come and sleep deh every night. We does even give she thing fuh eat sometimes,” he told this newspaper.Asked if the woman had shown any sign of being violent previously, the villagers said no except for one occasion when she reportedly attacked another man on his way home.However, Amar disclosed that Balmacoon, a known alcoholic, and the woman were familiar with each other since on a few occasions she would seek his assistance in obtaining matches to light her cigarettes.“Sometime he pass drunk and he would sit down right hey with she. De lady does smoke and some time she does ask he fuh a light. She know he yes, because she know he live ah back deh.”Amar was shocked at the passing of his neighbour, since 15 minutes prior to the incident Balmacoon, who resides alone, went to him and asked him for matches and he sent him away.Sharon Balmacoon, the dead man’s estranged wife who lives a short distance from him, told Kaieteur News that she last him earlier on Saturday when he paid his normal visit to his two children.She said that she was at her sister’s shop when the two children came crying, telling her that their father had died.“Somebody tell them and they run and come to me. They say he was breathing and they holler for help and nobody rushed in time. They say some mad lady stab he, that’s what I hear when I come,” the woman said.Despite their separation, Sharon is saddened by his death.Sheriff Balmacoon“Since we left, like four years now, he used to be all over the place, sleeping on the road and these stuff. And this is just a sad ending to his life,” she said.
