‘My life seems over,’ says mum of man killed in drug-debt row
THE mother of a hard-working father who was stabbed to death has spoken of her agony at losing her only surviving child.
Marcus “Sheppy” Sheppard died after going to help a drug dealer enforce a debt in the early hours of February 27, just months before his partner was due to give birth to their third child.
His family have said their lives will never be the same again after the man who killed him was jailed.
Mr Sheppard, 37, was not involved in the drug world and wrongly believed he had cancer at the time of his death, which resulted in him drinking heavily and going with dealer Christopher “Maz” Evans to where Nicholas Sloots was staying in Port Talbot, Swansea Crown Court heard.
It was there that Sloots, 34, who owed £2,000 to £3,000 to Mr Evans, fatally stabbed Mr Sheppard in the heart, neck and chest.
Sloots, of Sandfields, Port Talbot, admitted manslaughter in relation to Mr Sheppard’s death and yesterday was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Sentencing, Judge Geraint Walters said Mr Sheppard was four times the drink-drive limit when he died. The judge doubted Mr Sheppard would have been capable at that point of forming any coherent intention.
“Unfortunately for Marcus Sheppard, he got caught up in this volatile and dangerous situation,” he said.
Mr Sheppard’s mother, Elaine, said in her victim statement to the court she had “chosen to have children and loved every bone in their bodies” and that Mr Sheppard’s older brother, Carl, died 20 years ago when he was 19.
She said: “I have no idea how I am going to cope with the fact that both of my boys have gone.”
Elwen Evans QC, for the prosecution, said Mr Shepphard had been drinking with Mr Evans all day on February 26 and that he and others in the group had tried to contact Sloots by text message and phone in the hours before they went to find Sloots, carrying two pool balls in socks with them as weapons.
She said: “Marcus does not seem to have been a part of the drug world which Maz and Sloots inhabited.”
Ms Evans said Mr Sheppard’s family believed his health fears influenced his behaviour that day and that he did not know the biopsy he had undergone for a lump on his neck would come back clear after he had died.
Peter Rouch QC, for the defence, questioned Ms Evans’ comment that Mr Sheppard had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and described the pool ball in a sock as a “formidable weapon”.
He said: “Marcus Sheppard was not there by accident; he chose to be there. He didn’t have with him a pool ball in one of Christopher Evans’ socks by accident; he chose to have it with him. Nicholas Sloots did not do anything to Marcus Sheppard.”
Mrs Sheppard said her son, who would never meet his daughter and had two sons aged two and three, had relished family life but “all these dreams have been taken from him”.