He can’t even kill a rat

Family of man who allegedly slew eight-year-old says he is not violent

FAMILY MEMBERS and close neighbours of the man who allegedly stabbed and killed an eight-year-old boy in Old Harbour Glades, St Catherine, on Saturday morning, seriously wounding his mother, has been described as a non-violent man.

Allegations are that the boy’s mother and the man were both in bed about 5:30 Saturday morning when an argument developed between them.

It is further alleged that the woman’s son, who was sleeping in an adjoining room, heard the commotion and went to see what was happening.

According to the allegations, a knife was brought into play, and both the woman and her son received single stab wounds to their chests. The boy was pronounced dead at the Spanish Town Hospital, and his mother, who was admitted in serious condition, underwent surgery and is now said to be recovering.

Family members and neighbours, however, say that the incident remains a mystery because the young man, whose mother lives abroad, had a promising future ahead of him and they just could not imagine him killing the boy, who, they say he had adopted as his son.

The man’s aunt, Natasha Levy, and his grandmother ,who both live in the house beside him, said she did not hear any screaming or loud noise that morning to alert her that something was wrong.

“I just don’t know what happened in the house between them. My nephew is a non-violent man who can’t even kill a rat. Moverover, he loves the boy like his own child. Both my mother and myself treated him like a family member. During the holiday, he spent a lot of time at my house. He is not a boy who gives problems,” Levy told The Gleaner, adding that the young woman hailed from Guy’s Hill in the parish and did not have any family in the area.

“They have been living together as a family for over a year now, and they have had disagreements, but he has never displayed any violent behaviour towards her. His mother, my sister, is now in the process of completing the filing for him to move to the US. I just don’t see him doing this. It’s just not in his nature,” she continued.

According to Levy, her first contact with her nephew on the morning in question was when he woke her up about 6:30, sobbing and hardly able to control his emotions, telling her that the little boy was lying in blood in his room.

“I pressed him as to what happened and he said, I don’t know. I immediately rushed over to the house, and I saw the boy lying on the floor in his room in a pool of blood. I felt his hand and I realised it was cold,” she stated.

Levy revealed that the boy’s mother was not in the house at the time, but as soon as she went outside, a crowd had gathered and neighbours told her that she had just got into a taxi and she was bleeding from the chest.

She said that she visited the boy’s mother at the hospital on Sunday, and the account she gave was that she had been awakened by screams from her son’s room, and when she got up, she saw her common-law husband with a knife in his hand, and immediately, he turned around and attacked her, but she managed to escape after being stabbed in the chest.

Meanwhile, the man who was taken into custody has not been charged as yet, and his name is being withheld, pending the completion of the investigation.