Miner Shane Jacobs was slashed about the body and stabbed to the chest by a man who reportedly accused him of “leaking information to the police”. The suspect was chased by other miners and was apprehended hours after the attack.
Jacobs, 30, of Lot 3 Old Road, Stewartville, West Coast Demerara jointly owned a mining concession in the Pamela Backdam, Mahdia area. The man, according to his mother Joan Rodrigues, and his uncle Jerald Jeffrey started operations at the location about three years ago.
About one week ago, the woman recalled, Jacobs had telephoned home to speak with her. The woman said she was not there at the time but Jacobs with his younger brother. The man promised his sibling that he would be coming home by April 18, his birthday, and that they would celebrate it together.
“During our last conversations he never told me about having a problem with anyone,” Joan said.
However, the woman explained that last August her brother, Jeffrey, was confronted and threatened by the suspect who killed Jacobs. Joan said she had learnt from her relative that the suspect was involved “in some bad business” and had accused Jeffrey and her son of reporting him to police.
“He had pulled a gun on my brother but other persons who were around manage to fight him and take it away before he could do anything….but that story die away. Nothing ever came of it,” Joan said.
Jacobs, she said, usually spent three to four months in the mining district and returned home for one to two months. Joan further explained that she was very young when she got Jacobs and a woman who now lives in the US, Sheila Shaw, aided in raising him.
“Sheila told him that he didn’t have to work if he didn’t want to but Shane was a very independent man,” Joan said. “He wanted to have something of his own and so he started up this thing with his uncle.”
In a press release issued on Saturday police said that Jacobs was murdered at about 9.15pm on Friday at Pamela Backdam. Jacobs, according to police, was involved in an argument with another man and was stabbed to the chest. He was taken to the Mahdia Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival.
Joan said that she finds it “strange” that her son would be involved in a fight. Jacobs, she said, was the type of person to run away from a fight. It just did not add up, she said.
Shortly after she had returned from church on Friday night, the woman recalled, she received a telephone call from someone who just came right out and told her that Jacobs had been murdered. His body arrived in Georgetown yesterday and a post-mortem examination will be conducted shortly.
“…fighting for
his life…”
Audie Rodgrigues told Stabroek News that he was very upset with the limited information being given to him by police about his son’s death. The man said that police had told him Jacobs was stabbed once to the chest with a “Rambo knife” but when he saw his son’s body at the morgue yesterday there many other wounds “just as fresh as the chest wound”.
“I don’t know how the police could tell me is just a stab to the chest he get when he was cut about his body,” Audie said yesterday. “Is fight he was fighting for his life that is why he had all those cuts on his body.”
The man told Stabroek News that Jacobs’ left hand was bandaged and he observed a deep cut on that part of his son’s body. Police, Audie said, told him that the cut was an old wound.
“I don’t know how they can tell me is an old wound when I can see is a fresh wound…I get to understand that it is one of the cuts inflicted on Shane by the attacker and the people who rush him to the hospital tie the cloth around the cut to try and stop the bleeding,” Audie explained.
The suspect, Audie further said, was chased about three miles into the backdam by several persons who had witnessed the incident. The men were able to track down and apprehend the suspect that same night, Audie said. However, Audie said that police told him that they were the ones who found the suspect in an abandoned house.
“This is not true. Is not police apprehend this man [the suspect]. Is the other miners find him…I am very, very upset with the police,” Audie stated.
He further said that his brother-in-law, Jeffrey, travelled out with his son’s body yesterday. Jeffrey, he said, would have more details on the incident but was currently attending to certain arrangements and was unavailable to speak with Stabroek News.
A resident of the mining community had told Stabroek News that the fatal stabbing occurred some nine miles from the populated part of Mahdia and the area is only accessible by pick-ups and ATV vehicles.
This newspaper had further learnt that a team from the city has been dispatched to the area to investigate. The team, a police source said yesterday, has since arrived in the area and investigations into the circumstances surrounding the murder of Jacobs are ongoing.
