FEAR TURNS FATAL

Shock, grief, and simmering anger have engulfed residents of Marlin Way in Braeton, Portmore, after a 63-year-old mother was brutally chopped to death inside her home. It was an attack neighbours say they feared could one day happen.

The deceased woman, Sonia LaBeach Dillion, a devoted mother and a long-standing supervisor at Sampars in Cross Roads, St Andrew, was found with multiple chop wounds at her Marlin Way house early yesterday morning.

The incident reportedly occurred just after 9 a.m.

Her adult daughter, 41, who was also attacked, remains hospitalised in serious but stable condition.

Investigators from the Greater Portmore police and the Criminal Investigation Branch are probing the deadly incident.

Contrary to earlier reports that a suspect had been held, the police were, up to late Tuesday, searching for a man believed to be of unsound mind.

Residents say they had long raised concerns about the individual, alleging harassment and troubling behaviour in the community.

“We’ve been begging for help,” one neighbour told The Gleaner, her voice trembling as she stared at the blood-stained yard cordoned off with police tape.

“People kept saying he needed help. Now look what happen.”

According to residents, the man once lived in the community but fell on hard times and had been sleeping in bushes and open lots nearby.

Several neighbours said they would routinely offer him food.

“We feed him,” another resident said.

“We never see him as violent like that. But sometimes him behave strange.”

One woman recounted a frightening encounter months ago when she said the man tried to attack her son.

RESIDENTS’ ENCOUNTERS

“From that day, every time me see him, me make up my face and stare him down,” she said.

“Me want him know me not afraid.”

Others insisted that they had never personally experienced violence from him.

Yet on Tuesday morning, many stood numb and shaken, struggling to reconcile their memories of a troubled man with the horror that unfolded.

Police sources say the attacker gained entry to the house and used a machete to inflict fatal injuries on the woman before fleeing the scene.

Her daughter was also chopped while trying to defend herself, investigators believe.

A relative, fighting back tears, said the family friend is devastated.

“She dead like a dog in her own house,” the relative cried.

The woman’s son and other relatives gathered outside the home Tuesday morning, holding on to each other for strength as undertakers removed her body.

At her workplace in Cross Roads, co-workers were initially puzzled when the usually punctual supervisor failed to report for duty.

“Everybody just assume she running late,” one employee shared.

The Gleaner was on hand when another staff member, someone who knew where she lived, visited the house and realised something was terribly wrong and relayed the devastating news back to the store.

By mid-morning, the workplace, too, had been plunged into mourning.

“She was firm but kind,” the colleague said. “She look out for everybody.”

Investigators have reportedly obtained CCTV footage said to show the suspect leaving the premises shortly after the attack, a development that has helped to focus the ongoing manhunt.

The killing has reignited concerns about mental health intervention, community safety, and whether more could have been done before tragedy struck.

Residents questioned whether earlier action by authorities might have prevented the attack.

“Everybody know him need help,” one man said quietly. “If help did come in time, maybe she would still be here.”

The daughter, family members say, has been speaking with relatives from her hospital bed, recounting fragments of the terrifying ordeal.

As police continue their search, Marlin Way remains cloaked in sorrow.

The seemingly tight-knit community grappled not only with loss but with the haunting sense that warning signs were missed.

The St Catherine South Police Division has recorded two murders as at February 14.

andre.williams@gleanerjm.com