A long-standing dispute between neighbours over the use of a passageway turned fatal yesterday morning in ‘A’ Field Sophia.
Yesterday around 10 am Shane Rowley was fatally stabbed by his neighbour Roger Pilgrim after a scuffle between the two men.
Rowley, 32, of 158 ‘A’ Field Sophia died on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital. Rowley was stabbed twice – one time each to the neck and abdomen.
Roger Pilgrim’s mother, Joy Pilgrim, relating the events which led to Rowley’s death, said “This morning [yesterday] I was at the bathroom. Well Shane came through my yard. One of my friend come calling me and he tell she that she #$%@ can’t come in the yard so I say Karen hold on I coming and with that I come over the fence… I was going through and he tell me I can’t @#$%&*@ pass and with that he tek the chain and he lash me at the side,” she pointed to the left side of her face.
“He start cuffing me up and rip down my clothes and my son he come now to part both of we and eventually he get lash with the chain and buss two part of his head and he start to cuff him up and suh,” she said.
The son she was referring to is 11 years old and he had a visible injury to his head. “My son Roger was sleeping,” Joy Pilgrim continued, “and like he hear the noise and before then Shane’s cousin and the girl that was in the yard they stand up there. They ain’t say well you know Shane how yuh gun knock duh woman and suh.
“My son came out. Me ain’t notice me son with any knife or suh. Anyway my son came down and he pull me away from Shane and say ‘how you gun knock my mother?’ Shane say ‘do what the #$%& you want. What you could do me?’”
A fight soon broke out, Joy said “and lil after Shane guh to pick up a piece of wood and I ain’t know where Roger get this knife from. Roger juk [Shane] to his side and to his neck and then he fall down and then Roger he run away.”
Rowley’s cousin Welton Blucher who lives in a separate apartment at the same residence as Rowley said that an argument had broken out between Rowley and the Pilgrims after Rowley accused Pilgrim’s younger brother of stealing bicycle tyres from him.
“When I come outside to go to me girl I hear me cousin arguing that [the younger Pilgrim] thief two ah he bicycle tyre. Then Roger mother come over and Shane was making to lock the gate with the chain…” explained Blucher.
Blucher said he turned away and there more arguing. He said when he looked back “there was a scuffling, pulling and tugging” between Pilgrim, who was in his shorts only, and Rowley.
“Then I see this boy draw a long, black-handle knife and stab Shane to he side. After he stab he to he side I sprint and say Roger yuh gah humble…” Blucher said.
According to Blucher, Rowley stumbled backwards and Pilgrim “run and jump the fence and pick up a cutlass with a passion and raise it at he mother when she talk to he. Then he throw the knife in the trench and run away.”
Blucher explained that the dispute over the use of the gate has been going on for years now between Rowley and the Pilgrims. Rowley’s brother was once married to Pilgrim’s mother, he pointed out.
The disputed passageway and gate leads out to the ‘B’ Field Sophia access road. Blucher explained that the Pilgrims had their own passageway but after an uncle who lives in front of the Pilgrims was robbed, the bridge was torn down.
The Pilgrims began using Rowley’s gate but the man objected, Blucher said, and would complain of items going missing from his yard or his farm. Rowley was a farmer, he explained.
Meanwhile, Rowley leaves to mourn two children and his reputed wife, Vandetta Carter.
Carter said she and Rowley had been together for five years and that she has her own place but would spend time at Rowley’s.
Carter said she received the news that he had been stabbed from a friend. “I come over and I see he lie down there,” she said pointing to the front of the yard.
“He wasn’t no troublesome man. He was a lively person,” Carter said. She, too, noted that the dispute over the use of the passageway had been a long-time issue with the neighbours.
Police have recovered the murder weapon. Pilgrim has not been arrested as yet.
