Albouystown man knifed to death after dispute over money

An Albouystown man was fatally stabbed a few streets from his home yesterday morning by a man he claimed owed him money.

Tolasicy Marshall, called ‘Talo,’ of Hogg Street, who sustained two stab wounds just after 11 am and died at the Georgetown Hospital about half an hour later, had paid his assailant to make jewellery for him but the man failed to deliver the goods. Marshall later retrieved a gold chain from the man and indicated that he still owed him. He was walking through School Street yesterday when his assailant walked out of his yard and stabbed him.

Up to press time last evening, the suspect, identified only as“Omar,” of School Street, was still on the run.

Tolasicy Marshall
Tolasicy Marshall

Marshall, who is a gold miner, recently returned from the interior.

The stabbing occurred outside a shop at the corners of School and James streets. Residents recalled seeing Marshall with blood gushing out of his chest, running down James Street before collapsing in front of a tree on Barr Street.

A resident, who did not want to be named, told Stabroek News that he saw the wounded Marshall running with his hands over his chest. The man said that from all indications, he was trying in vain to stop the bleeding. Marshall, he added, made it around the corner in the direction of Independence Boulevard before he collapsed.

Persons were reluctant to move the man because of all the blood and it was the driver of a canter truck who later used his vehicle and transported him to the hospital.

The police also came in for heavy criticism over their slow response. Stabroek News was told that after committing the stabbing, the suspect went into a house and later left in a taxi before the police arrived.

Explaining the circumstances leading up to the stabbing, Triskie, the dead man’s twin brother, told reporters that his brother had given him $250,000 to give to the suspect to make a gold chain and a band. He said that the arrangement was for the man to take $50, 000 for himself and use the remainder to make the jewellery.

Triskie said he did as he was asked and the suspect was given one week to make and deliver the items. However, when he asked him subsequently if he had made the items, the man said he had used the money to buy “weed.”

He recalled telling the man, “I give you money to do something, not for fuh you to do you thing….”

He added that the suspect later told his brother that all the money would be handed back to him but his brother said he only wanted $200,000.

But Triskie added that the suspect from all indications did make the chain and when his brother saw him wearing it, he snatched it off his neck and claimed it as his own. He also told Omar that he still had $150,000 for him.

Triskie said yesterday his brother left, saying was going to collect some money and come back. He learned that it was as he was walking through School Street that the suspect came out of his yard and stabbed him. He sustained a stab wound to the heart and one underneath the armpit.

He said that the wounds were inflicted with a long knife and he was told that after the stabbing Marshall was “gasping for life” and he knew that he would have died.
The suspect, he said, ran away and ended up in a house in the area. According to Triskie, two men were looking at him to ensure he did not escape but when he returned from the Ruimveldt Police Station he learnt that the suspect boarded a taxi and left. He questioned why residents did not collect the licence plate number of the car, knowing that the man had just committed a murder. “If we ain’t get he, he could get the car man and the car man woulda deh under pressure and tell we whey he drop this man…,” he said.

Triskie noted that the suspect just recently chopped a friend of his in the head after a similar dispute.

He also said his family had been mourning the death of their mother, who passed recently.