A San Juan handyman was convicted on Monday of the unlawful killing (manslaughter) of a housekeeper at a villa in Mt Irvine in 2006.

Clint Sylvan, who lived at Milford Court, Tobago, at the time of the killing, was before Justice Geoffrey Henderson in a judge-only trial in the Tobago High Court.

He was charged with the murder of Janet Davis on September 8, 2006.

But on the basis of the evidence, Henderson said his verdict was not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter on the basis of provocation.

Twelve witnesses gave evidence at the trial and the evidence of three others was admitted as evidence, including the post-mortem report on Davis, which noted 14 stab and four incised wounds.

In his ruling, Henderson said Davis sustained the extensive injuries in a “frenzied attack.”

Sylvan raised provocation in his defence, and although the judge said there was absence of words of provocation, there was circumstantial evidence of provocative words.

“The evidence in this case is that the accused came into the room, went straight to the deceased, while saying, ‘What it is you say on the phone dey?’ and immediately began hitting Janet Davis.

“I have drawn the inference from that utterance made by the accused that something was said which suddenly and temporarily made him lose his self-control. The evidence from his co-workers is that this was the first time that they saw him behave this way,” the judge said in his ruling.

At the trial, Sylvan said he and Davis had a romantic relationship which began three years before the incident.

In an interview with police immediately after the stabbing, Sylvan, who told police where to find the knife he had used, said he “really loved” Davis and they got into an incident that could have been avoided.

The only eyewitness to the killing was a co-worker in housekeeping who testified that she and Davis were cleaning one of the rooms at the holiday property when Davis received a phone call.

She testified that Davis sounded angry when she got the call and, suddenly, Sylvan appeared in the room they were cleaning and said, “What you are saying on the phone dey?”

The witness said Sylvan began cuffing Davis and when she fell to the ground, the co-worker ran out of the room for help.

She returned with a guest and saw Sylvan, who was crouched on top of Davis, take a knife from his waist and begin stabbing her with “plenty stabs.”

She and the guest left the room and waited in another until the police came.

She said it was the first time she had ever seen Sylvan hit Davis and had never seen this behaviour from him before.

Sylvan was seen running from the property by someone who lived next door and police met Sylvan at a restaurant on Shirvan Road, sitting on a stool.

Sylvan stretched both of his wrists out to a policeman and said, “I am the man you looking for.”

Two days before the incident, the couple’s co-workers said they were with Sylvan in the laundry area when he began complaining about how Davis and her family treated him.

They said he wasn’t spea