Man stabbed to death at Bourda Market

A man was stabbed to death with a broken bottle yesterday afternoon at the Bourda Market, in Georgetown.

Around 3.30 pm, market vendors were alerted to a cry for help by a vagrant, who was identified as 40-year-old Jerome Cumberbatch, of Half Mile, Linden.

“I didn’t take it as anything serious because them [vagrants] does always deh around and messing with one another. I hear he saying, ‘Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!’ Like five times. And then he start hollering for help and when I run out I see he in the corner sitting on the stall and I didn’t think anything of it but is when he move he hand I see the blood start gush out,” one of the vendors told Stabroek News.

The police investigators examining the crime scene yesterday afternoon at the Bourda Market.

After noticing Cumberbatch with several deep stab wounds, a city constable was alerted and called an ambulance. While the man was still alive when the ambulance was called, he bled to death on the ground. The police were then notified and responding ranks secured the area and carried out their initial investigations before the Lyken Funeral Home took the man’s body away.

While the circumstances surrounding the stabbing are unclear and the vendors around the area claimed that they did not see who stabbed the man, Stabroek News was told that Cumberbatch was seen earlier in an argument with another vagrant over money and it might have been what led to his demise.

“I remember just before walking in and see he body I see some one of them junkies dash out the market and run [east] towards Alexander Street and disappear and I didn’t think anything of it until I see the commotion and realize what happened,” another vendor explained.

One of the vendors described the wounds as “deep and vicious” and related that a broken bottle, which is suspected to be the murder weapon, was found next to the man’s body. “Whoever do duh de really cruel with how he stab up the man so,” the vendor explained. Up to press time, the assailant was still on the run.