ST ANN’S BAY, St Ann — The man who was shot dead by police yesterday after he was accused of beheading another was described as a violent individual who was feared by many in this north-eastern town.

Said to be mentally challenged, and known as ”Soljie” perhaps because he was once enrolled in the Jamaica Defence Force, the man was killed after he was said to have committed the bizarre act of beheading a man whom he had earlier attacked, and set his head on fire in the town’s car park.

Police said Soljie was shot after they tried to apprehend him, and he, in turn, attacked a senior member of the security team that had gone in search of him.

Law enforcers did not name the man who was killed by the former soldier, but referred to him only as ”Nutsy”. He was said to be in his late 60s and is a familiar face in the town.

Soljie was also said to be in his 60s.

Onlookers who gathered at the death scene yesterday muttered that Soljie was seen oftentimes roaming the streets of the St Ann parish capital with a machete tucked in his waist or sometimes in a bag which he carried on his back.

Deputy Superintendent Linton Bailey, who is in charge of crime in St Ann, said the police were alerted around 4:00 am that someone was being beheaded in the car park. Upon the arrival of a police team, a man’s headless body was found at the front of a shop in the park. The police team then proceeded to an old building where Soljie usually frequents, and saw him with the head of the deceased, along with a breadfruit in a fire that he had started.

It was at that point that the police said he attacked the senior officer with the machete, and was shot.

Though the news came as a shock to people in the town that Nutsy was killed, some immediately associated the attack with the mentally challenged man.

One St Ann’s Bay-based taxi operator said he personally feared the mentally ill man.

“When you see him, the machete that him bring pon him shine to how him sharpen it and him walk with like him a bring a gun. From you see him you scared, so me not even walk close to him,” he told the Jamaica Observer. “Right now we happy say him not in the area anymore. Me just sorry how him kill a innocent man like Nutsy.”

“From you see Soljie you see evil. What him do was like a cannibal move,” the cabbie added.

Nathaniel Lawrence, councillor candidate for the Opposition People’s National Party in the St Ann’s Bay Division, also condemned the heinous act, saying that Soljie was always a danger to the society.

“He was always walking around with a helmet and a machete and it was obvious that he was crazy and he was going to do something harmful and there are other mad men on the street throwing stones, hitting people in the head and damaging vehicles,” he said

Lawrence wants all mentally challenged individuals to be removed from the town’s streets.

“Let’s hope that nothing like this happens again in this division. It is so unfortunate because I know the gentleman who died. He is always at the Square One Supermarket where he helps people to and from with their goods and he does a little selling at times to make a little money here and there,” said Lawerence “We need to take these madmen off the road because they are a threat to lives.”

Other residents described Nutsy as a peaceful man.

“Him not even talk. When you see him, him very quiet. Him just push cart through the town with people groceries or the market people them stuff,” one woman who identified herself as Ann told the Sunday Observer.

“Me nuh know Nutsy personally but me feel it because him nuh trouble people. Him always deh a Cash Pot shop and just a do him thing so me nuh know him and Soljie to have anything fi him kill him,” another resident stated.