One dead, three arrested as feud rips Abary family apart

Maxwell Watson, 33, a labourer, who was stabbed in his chest, collapsed and died at the side of the road after bleeding profusely from his wounds. Police recovered a blood-stained knife and a cutlass at the scene.

During the fracas, the attacker was chopped three places on his hand. Police took him to the Mahaicony Hospital for treatment.

The man’s reputed wife, Valery Lyle, 20, told Stabroek News yesterday that she and her husband had just returned home from his mother’s house at Now or Never, Mahaicony when his uncle, started to abuse and threaten her.

She said the unemployed uncle who was consuming alcohol with two of his other nephews and playing loud music told her, “Let the dance done tonight, let the dance done!”

The man she said was also shouting her name and at one stage he pointed an improvised shotgun at her and threatened to kill her.

Reports are that Watson, who had armed himself with a knife and a chopper, pelted his uncle with a “saucepan” as the brawl continued. According to Lyle, the man ran up her stairs and grabbed her husband even as he tried to close the door.

Chandroutie Bissoon

She alleged that his nephews also went up the stairs with him and assisted him to carry out the attack. She said the uncle overpowered her husband and dealt him the stabs and he started to scream. She said she ran to his rescue and she too was stabbed in her back.

At that stage, she said she grabbed her five-year-old daughter, Candy Watson and ran for her life. She was treated at the Mahaicony Hospital and sent away.

By the time she returned home from the hospital, she said, she saw her husband “stretched out on the road,” and he appeared to be dead.

She said she later learnt that he too tried to run from his attackers and collapsed in the middle of the road. Persons had to lift him in the corner where he succumbed shortly after.

Lyle said the assailant had constantly threatened her and Watson.

The assailant’s mother and the dead man’s grandmother, 75-year-old Chandroutie Bissoon who lives in the front house in the yard, said she heard the noise and tried to prevent her son from committing the act.

However, she said, he pushed her down and she had to go and lie down and did not know what happened after.

The woman who suffers from high blood pressure said “me mek nine children and me never had a headache like this.”

She said the family has a history of bad blood but she did not expect that things would have ended up that way. The woman said Watson had threatened her and she made a report to the police. He was charged with the offence but the matter was dismissed.

When this newspaper visited the scene yesterday heavy blood stains were evident on Watson’s landing, on the stairs, the yard, sections of the fence and on the road.

According to a police press release investigations revealed that Watson was attacked by an uncle and two other nephews who had been imbibing earlier.

The uncle was reportedly armed with a cutlass and a suspected improvised shotgun and during the incident Watson was stabbed about his body. Watson’s reputed wife was stabbed to her back while attempting to protect him, the release said.