Peacemaker stabbed to death while breaking up women’s fight

An­na Lisa Paul

Two men were killed in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in Diego Mar­tin and San Juan on Wednes­day.

A man who in­ter­vened in a fight be­tween two women was stabbed in the back and lat­er died in hos­pi­tal. He was iden­ti­fied as couri­er Stephan Roberts, 31, of Agua San­ta Av­enue, Diego Mar­tin.

A 21-year-old Diego Mar­tin woman, who works as a cashier at Su­per Pharm, was al­so stabbed dur­ing the in­ci­dent. She was treat­ed at hos­pi­tal and dis­charged in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

Re­ports in­di­cate the cashier had just com­plet­ed her shift at Su­per Pharm and crossed the road to Sierre Leone Street at about 8.30 pm on De­cem­ber 17, when she was al­leged­ly con­front­ed by a col­league with whom she had a ver­bal al­ter­ca­tion at work. The 24-year-old woman of Blue Range, Diego Mar­tin, had re­port­ed­ly been sent home by a su­per­vi­sor around 7.30 pm.

Po­lice said the ag­griev­ed em­ploy­ee at­tacked the cashier and, dur­ing the strug­gle, the cashier’s cell­phone fell to the ground and was picked up by an­oth­er woman who had been stand­ing with the at­tack­er. The vic­tim lat­er walked to­wards the Diego Mar­tin Main Road and was pur­sued by the two women, one of whom was re­port­ed­ly armed with a switch blade.

Roberts, who was lim­ing a short dis­tance away and wit­nessed the in­ci­dent, rushed to sep­a­rate the women and was stabbed twice in the back dur­ing the melee. The cashier was stabbed in the right shoul­der.

An off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer at­tached to the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion, who was pass­ing at the time, al­so in­ter­vened. As res­i­dents rushed to as­sist the in­jured vic­tims, the two women con­tin­ued walk­ing north along the Diego Mar­tin Main Road.

Both vic­tims were tak­en to the St James In­fir­mary, where Roberts was pro­nounced dead at about 9.14 pm.

Of­fi­cers re­spond­ing to re­ports de­tained two sus­pects af­ter their cloth­ing was found soaked in blood. Dur­ing ques­tion­ing, the women ad­mit­ted be­ing in­volved in a fight with a man and a woman a short dis­tance away. A search re­vealed two knives tied around their necks on strings, with what ap­peared to be blood on them.

The sus­pects, a 24-year-old of Blue Range and a 19-year-old of Rox­bor­ough Ex­ten­sion, Diego Mar­tin, were tak­en to the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion, where they were processed and de­tained.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent ear­li­er in the day, PH dri­ver Ishiya­ho Es­h­ban Williams, 34, of Bagatelle Road, San Juan, was shot and killed around 2.20 pm on De­cem­ber 18.

Po­lice said Williams was dri­ving his black Nis­san Note north along Hyde Road around 2.15 pm when he was pur­sued by oc­cu­pants of a sil­ver Nis­san AD Wag­on. On reach­ing a dead end, he stopped, ex­it­ed the ve­hi­cle and ran but was chased by gun­men who shot him mul­ti­ple times.

Of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion­al Task Force were on mo­bile pa­trol when they re­ceived re­ports of gun­shots at Hyde Road, North San Juan. They found Williams alive but bleed­ing from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds to the head, chest and ab­domen. He was rushed to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he died at 2.25 pm.

Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors at­tached to the Spe­cial Ev­i­dence Re­cov­ery Unit processed the scene and re­cov­ered 15 spent 9 mm shells, one ad­di­tion­al spent 9 mm shell and one live 9 mm round.

Po­lice re­port­ed that af­ter Williams fell to the ground, the gun­men stood over him and fired re­peat­ed­ly be­fore es­cap­ing in their ve­hi­cle.