Slashing of tarp dwelling sparked Port Kaituma stabbing

Twenty-eight-year-old Kenneth Kennedy, who was stabbed to death last Friday afternoon in Port Kaituma, died as he attempted to represent his uncle who was in fact preventing a dwelling from being destroyed by an irate resident.

Stabroek News was told that contrary to what was reported in yesterday’s edition Kennedy was not killed during an argument over a cigarette but rather it was over a family’s tarpaulin dwelling that was being destroyed by the man.
The man’s reputed wife, Amy Williams, travelled to the heart of Port Kaituma yesterday and reported that she, Kennedy, his uncle and the suspect were indeed drinking at the suspect’s home shortly before the incident.

She said she was later instructed by her husband to go home and prepare dinner for the family and she left. Shortly after she saw her daughters running towards her home and screaming and she late learnt that her husband had been stabbed.

By the time she travelled the short distance to the scene Kennedy was already dead and his uncle had suffered a wound to his back. Williams said that the uncle related that after she left, a small child entered the suspect’s yard and was picking eddo leaves and he, the suspect, berated her and chased her out of the yard. The suspect followed the child to her home nearby and took a knife and started to slash the tarpaulin dwelling and threatened to burn it down.

Kennedy’s uncle then told him that what he was doing was wrong and he should leave the family alone. The uncle after chastising the man turned to return to the yard and it was then the suspect plunged the knife into his back. Kennedy then went to his uncle’s rescue and during a scuffle with the suspect he was stabbed in the neck and died shortly after.

The suspect was later apprehended by villagers as he attempted to flee the scene.
Meanwhile, Williams yesterday told residents that she has no money to bury her husband as according to her for two months she and her husband worked with a Brazilian miner and were not paid. While she worked as a cook, her husband was a miner and they are said to be owed about $150,000. Her lamentations of no money did not fall on deaf ears and a resident of the community contacted a brother of the Brazilian miner who promised to make contact with his brother in the backdam to give the woman some money.