Three days after he is believed to have confronted a bandit at his home, a 36-year-old man of Welcome died last Wednesday, May 27th, at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.

Garfield Edwards succumbed to the three chop wounds he received to the head.{{more}}

Edwards had been suffering repeated losses at the hands of one or more bandits who had been breaking into the home that he shares with his 74-year-old mother Catherine and his father Ephraim, relatives claim.

So that fateful Sunday morning, instead of going with the rest of the family to the Glad Tidings Tabernacle church that he frequented, Garfield decided to surprise the would be bandit.

“As I was leaving the morning for church, he said if he catches somebody here today…,” his niece Jemarie Edwards told SEARCHLIGHT.



The scene that greeted his mother when she came back from a morning of giving praise and worship unto God suggested that he did indeed catch someone.

“When I reached home from church I saw half the door open, and I heard the radio on and saw my son stretch out in a set of blood,” Catherine told SEARCHLIGHT.

She recalled how before she went to church, he had asked her not to cook any rice, and had cut up callaloo bush for her to make soup for him.

With agony etched on her face, she described her son, the last of her six children, as a quiet, hardworking, helpful child.

She told of how he built his small snacks and drinks business which he plied at Little Tokyo, starting with one ice box, then another, as he chose to be constructive instead of wasting time, liming on the block.

It was Catherine’s neighbour Orey Craigg, a fifth form student of the St Vincent Grammar School, who had to rush to her attention when she bawled out after being confronting with the gruesome sight.

Craigg told SEARCHLIGHT that it was about 1 pm when the church van dropped them home.

“I just heard her (Catherine) shouting out that she saw her son in a pool of blood,” Craigg said.

He told SEARCHLIGHT that when he rushed to the aid of his elderly neighbour, he saw Garfield spread out, with his face upwards, in front of the front door, and saw a lot of blood.

“I called his (Garfield) name and he said yes, and I asked him what happened to him and he said he not feeling well,” a still shaken Craigg said.

A Calliaqua police source told SEARCHLIGHT that while robbery is believed to be the motive, it is not clear what was taken from Garfield.

Intense investigations are continuing, the police source says.

Garfield is believed to have been downstairs in the kitchen when the attack took place. (KJ)