– cops seeking suspect
A teenager is in a serious condition, with a bullet lodged in his chest, at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) after he and a 25-year-old woman were shot by her reportedly enraged drunken lover at Riverview, Georgetown late Sunday night.
Cheryl Marques, 25, who was in pain yesterday after sustaining a gunshot wound to the right thigh, said she was injured when her boyfriend of five months shot 17-year-old Mark Fernandes and she rushed to the boy’s assistance.
Police, in a press release late yesterday afternoon said Marques and the suspect had an argument during which he allegedly assaulted her and Fernandes. The 17-year-old, according to police, “was in the vicinity” and intervened in the couple’s argument. The suspect then left, returned with a firearm and discharged rounds hitting Fernandes in his chest and Marques in her right thigh.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud reported that the suspect is “a known character” to police and have had several brushes with the law. Police, Persaud said, had not up to yesterday afternoon apprehended the suspect, who is not a licensed firearm holder.
Both victims were taken to the GPH. Marques was treated and sent away while Fernandes was admitted a patient to the Male Surgical Ward and was in a stable condition at the time. However, yesterday afternoon the man’s relatives reported that his condition had worsened and the bullet was still lodged in his chest.
“The doctors tell us that the bullet damaged a lot of tissue and they can’t operate on him yet to get the bullet out,” Fernandes’ father said yesterday.
Meanwhile, in a version somewhat different from that reported by police, Marques told Stabroek News that shortly after 11 pm on Sunday her boyfriend had “too much to drink” and an argument erupted between them at a D’Urban Street, Georgetown club.
“Normally when we go out,” the woman said, “he [the suspect] don’t take more than two drinks but that night I see he drinking and drinking and know something didn’t right so I told him I wanted to go home.”
During a terrifying five-minute drive to her home that night, Marques recalled, her lover threatened to “crash the car” with her in it.
After they arrived at the narrow bridge which leads to her Lot 15 Sea dam Riverview, Ruimveldt Georgetown home the man renewed his threat to kill her. “…and he told me that he was coming back here to shoot me…,” Marques said.
Marques said she was standing at the “street corner” along with Fernandes and other persons when her boyfriend returned a short time later. The woman said she warned Fernandes and told him to leave when she saw her boyfriend approaching but the youth refused to do so.
“I told him [Fernandes] to move but he didn’t want to go… he [the suspect] stop the car and go to his car trunk and take out something and lash me to my neck,” Marques recalled. “After he lash me, Markie [Fernandes] said something and I hear a loud sound… when I see Markie [Fernandes] holding his chest I run over to him and I hear another loud sound and then I feel a burning in my thigh.”
The suspect, she said, then fled the scene and residents assisted in getting her and the injured teen to GPH. While they were at the hospital, she also said, the suspect called and told her mother that he was sorry for what he had done.
“He called and told my mother he was sorry he shoot me and that he was going to compensate me…,” Marques said “If I de dead how he woulda compensate my mother?”
Marques expressed hope that the man would soon be arrested by police and said that she would not feel safe in her home until he was.
