THE GRIEF was too much for a St James family to bear yesterday, when Michael Antonio Phillips, 25, was found dead at their home at No. 351, 12th Avenue, West Terrace Gardens.
The former St James Secondary student was found around 9:45 a.m. in a bathroom in a separate wooden house behind the main home, with a knife in his solar plexus, apparently having committed suicide.
As news of the incident spread throughout the neighbourhood, residents gathered and huddled together in the blazing sun, while some shed a few tears as they watched police officers traverse the scene.
The silence was broken however by Phillips’ close friend Rommell, who was so overcome by grief that he started a fearsome bellowing in the neighbourhood causing close relatives to rush to his side, while others stared in shock or retreated in fright.
It was reported that Rommell and Phillips, who grew up together, spent many nights and hours liming together and playing video games.
Residents spoke lovingly of the family, said to be “extremely nice and quiet”.
“This has to be extremely hard for them right now. Those two boys were so lovable. Yes, Michael had his little depression problems but that family is a very loving family,” one woman remarked.
Another recalled Phillips as being a very good graphic artist.
“He could draw almost anything. He loved to draw cartoon characters and he could draw them so well. I often wondered why he didn’t choose that as a career,” she added.
Another resident confirmed that Phillips was suffering from depression for the last two years.
He revealed that Phillips started acting strange early the morning.
“His mother said that for the last few weeks he had been complaining of headaches all the time, and he had been confiding in his mother that he wasn’t feeling well and that he wasn’t sleeping. After he started acting strange this morning, he left the main house and went into the small wooden house to try to get some sleep, but when his mother decided to go and check on him to take him to the doctor, it was then she saw the body,” the man said.
It is understood that another friend, in whom Phillips confided and who used to call him every morning to check on him, called his cellphone yesterday and was shocked to hear from his buddy’s mother Arlene Morris that Phillips’ body had just been found.
Station Sergeant Peter Dawson of the Holetown Police Station confirmed that Michael Antonio Phillips was discovered by his mother around 9:45 a.m., and would only say police were conducting further investigations into the matter, in which he said no foul play was suspected.
The DAILY NATION was unable to get any comment from family members, who became angry at media personnel who were taking photographs, going as far as throwing rocks at them when workers from Two Sons Funeral Home came to remove the body.
